Pan thanatology

@article{Anderson2010PanT,
  title={Pan thanatology},
  author={James R Anderson and Alasdair Gillies and L. C. Lock},
  journal={Current Biology},
  year={2010},
  volume={20},
  pages={R349-R351}
}
Chimpanzees' immediate responses to the death of a group-member have rarely been described. Exceptions include maternal care towards dead infants, and frenzied excitement and alarm following the sudden, traumatic deaths of older individuals [1-5]. Some wild chimpanzees die in their night nest [6], but the immediate effect this has on others is totally unknown. Here, with supporting video material, we describe the peaceful demise of an elderly female in the midst of her group. Group responses… 
View on Elsevier
cell.com
72 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
4
Background Citations
21
Results Citations
4

Figures from this paper

72 Citations

Citation Type

Citation Type

Coping with mortality: responses of monkeys and great apes to collapsed, inanimate and dead conspecifics
TLDR
It is argued that while both monkeys and great apes detect body dysfunction through the victims’ inability to wake up and move, only great apes can understand that something serious has happened.
Can nonhuman animals commit suicide
Many people believe that only humans have the cognitive and behavioral capacities needed for suicidal behavior, such as reflexive subjectivity, free will, intentionality, or awareness of death. Three…
Death among primates: a critical review of non‐human primate interactions towards their dead and dying
TLDR
It is argued that non‐human primates are capable of an implicit awareness of death, and an integrated model of Life‐Death Awareness is proposed, which is crucial to the management of grieving responses, update position in the group's hierarchy, and accelerate the formation of new social bonds.
Responses of chimpanzees to a recently dead community member at Gombe National Park, Tanzania
TLDR
Individual chimpanzees' responses to range from curious observation and passive investigation to the shaking, dragging, and frustrated beating of the body are observed and may reflect individuals' past experience with death.
A primatological perspective on death
TLDR
It is argued that particular attention should be paid to how the context of a death affects individuals, for example, traumatic accidental or predation‐induced death versus peaceful death following illness.
Changes in laboratory mice after observation of deceased conspecifics: a pilot suicidality study in animals
Methods To examine the behavioral and brain activity changes associated with death of conspecifics, laboratory mice were exposed to a cadaveric mouse or an anesthetized mouse. Behavioral tasks…
Death is common, so is understanding it: the concept of death in other species
TLDR
It is argued that the CoD requires relatively little cognitive complexity and that it can emerge independently from mourning behaviour, and, so, it can expect to be fairly common in nature.
Invasive Research on Non-Human Primates—Time to Turn the Page
TLDR
It is suggested that the importance of a research question cannot justify the costs of invasive research on primates, and that non-invasive methods should be considered the only possible approach in the study of primates.
Animal minds: The case for emotion, based on neuroscience
ABSTRACT Do non-human animals have minds? This scientific question, with important ethical implications, can be answered differently depending on the criteria used: in particular, whether we…
Anthropomorphism in comparative affective science: Advocating a mindful approach
TLDR
A nuanced perspective of how anthropomorphism impacts the work of comparative affective science is provided and three domains of empirical inquiry in which lessons can be drawn are discussed: responses to death, inequity aversion, and prosocial behavior.
...
1
2
3
4
5
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 26 REFERENCES
The chimpanzees of Bossou and Nimba
TLDR
The Bossou chimpanzees occupy 6 km 2 of sacred forest and farm bush almost a day’s journey from any others of their species, and in apparent response to their strange isolation they challenge various demographic and behavioral generalizations.
Bottle feeding simulates child loss: postpartum depression and evolutionary medicine.
TLDR
The implications of this hypothesis for infant feeding practices, hospital procedures that lead to intermittent separation between mothers and infants during the immediate postpartum period, parallels between an increased desire to hold infants by mothers who bottle feed and responses to infant death among nonhuman primates, and the relationship between weaning and depression are discussed.
Searching for inhibition of return in visual search: A review
TLDR
Findings support the idea that IOR facilitates foraging by discouraging orienting toward previously examined regions and items through inhibition of return in search.
Where perception meets memory: A review of repetition priming in visual search tasks
TLDR
A large body of results from priming studies suggest that a short-term implicit memory system guides the authors' attention to recently viewed items, and that priming occurs at many different levels of the perceptual hierarchy, reflecting activity modulations ranging from lower to higher levels, depending on the stimulus, task, and context.
The Death of a Newborn Chimpanzee at Mahale: Reactions of its Mother and Other Individuals to the Body
Maternal responses to dead and dying infants in wild troops of ring-tailed lemurs at the Berenty Reserve, Madagascar
TLDR
Each mother exhibited some form of maternal behavior toward her dead infant for hours after its death, indicating that there may not be a great gap in terms of maternal affection between simian and prosimian mothers.
Regarding Scenes
When we view the visual world, our eyes flit from one location to another about three times each second. These frequent changes in gaze direction result from very fast saccadic eye movements. Useful…
Transport of dead infant mountain gorillas by mothers and unrelated females
TLDR
This report describes prolonged carriage of the corpses of two mountain gorilla infants by both related and unrelated adult females, suggesting that maternal behavior toward unrelated infants may be a by-product of the hormonal condition of pregnancy and that the animals may be “learning to mother,” as nulliparous females could benefit from the experience of handling an infant that is no longer alive.
What attributes guide the deployment of visual attention and how do they do it?
As you drive into the centre of town, cars and trucks approach from several directions, and pedestrians swarm into the intersection. The wind blows a newspaper into the gutter and a pigeon does…
Wild chimpanzees at Bossou-Nimba: Deaths through a flu-like epidemic in 2003 and the Green Corridor Project
  • Primate Res
  • 2004
...
1
2
3
...