We humans are prone to anthropomorphize animals, or ascribe human thoughts, feelings and motivations to their behaviors. Often, our focus is on the cute behaviors: how animals play and love. But death is a constant specter of life, and we have been fascinated for centuries about how it affects animals. Even Charles Darwin wondered if animals recognized death and mourned death.
So, do animals understand what death is? Do they mourn as humans do when a loved one dies?
These questions can be hard to answer, in part because they are sometimes entangled. “It’s a very different question to ask whether animals understand death and whether they can grieve,” says Susana Monsó, a philosopher and ethicist at the Spanish National Distance Education University who specializes in animal minds. Her book, Schrödinger’s Opossum, explores how animals understand death. Monsó finds that some scientists insist an animal must understand death before grief ...
