How do gorillas deal with death?
Gorillas have 'funerals' just like humans: Heartbreaking footage shows a baby desperately trying to groom and tend to his mother's body - as scientists say it is proof the species care for their dead. Gorillas grieve for their dead and have funerals for them just like humans, according to scientists.
It is generally assumed that humans are the only animals who can possess a concept of death. However, the ubiquity of death in nature and the evolutionary advantages that would come with an understanding of death provide two prima facie reasons for doubting this assumption.
“I believe we are now justified in thinking that chimpanzees have some kind of awareness of death,” says psychologist James Anderson of Scotland's University of Stirling, who has been studying chimp responses to the dying.
At some level, animals seem to understand the concept of death. From elephants who grieve for the loss of a herd member to whales who won't leave their dead babies behind, many species react to death in much the same way that people do.
Like shy humans, staring directly into the eyes of gorilla make them feel uncomfortable and insecure and when disrupted by your direct eye contact, they can charge aggressively at you to defend themselves.
Gorillas usually stand bipedally and rapidly beat their chests with cupped hands in rapid succession. Chest beating is a unique sound because is it not a vocalization, like frogs croaking, but rather it is a form of gestural communication that can be both heard and seen.
To date, there's only one species that has been called 'biologically immortal': the jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii. These small, transparent animals hang out in oceans around the world and can turn back time by reverting to an earlier stage of their life cycle.
This is the last and most heartbreaking of the main signs that a dog is dying. Some dogs will know their time is approaching and will look to their people for comfort.
Emu dies due to lack of attention.
Gorillas. The scientific literature contains several accounts of mourning by other non-human primates (our closest evolutionary relatives). In 2019 Researchers in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo described three instances of gorillas mourning their dead in an article in PeerJ.
Do gorillas cry when sad?
We often talk about the cry of animals, like wolves or eagles, but I assume you mean shedding tears. Lots of animals do this to clear debris from their eyes. But surprisingly, there's no good evidence that any of them do this as a sign of unhappiness (our close relatives, chimps and gorillas, use vocal noises).
When a silverback dies, the whole group has a very clear reaction: the other group members often stay close to the dead male for a long time, observing and sometimes carefully approaching and touching or grooming the dead body.
Primates grieving over the death of a troop member is not a recently observed phenomenon. Studies have found many different species of primates display signs of grief, however, a study on Bereavement: Reactions, Consequences, and Care shows that the length and intensity of their mourning period varies between species.