It was a story that pulled at the heartstrings. In 2018, an orca called Tahlequah was seen dragging the corpse of her newborn baby calf for 17 days, over 1,000 miles along the coast of North America. Eventually, Talequah let the baby go (happily, she’s had another baby since), but her behaviour left behind lots of questions among scientists about grief in animals.
Other animal behaviour suggests a complex relationship with death. A mother chimpanzee was observed cleaning the teeth of her dead son. And some elephant calves have also been found buried in ways that suggest grief and mourning.
In this week’s episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, we speak to Susana Monsó, a philosopher who researches animal ethics and animal minds, about the different ways animals understand death.
Since starting her research on animals and death, one of Monsó’s favourite animals has been the opposum. These cute, furry marsupials play dead when they feel threatened, as she explains.
“She adopts the bodily........