Some animals, such as birds and mammals display obvious signs of emotions such as happiness, excitement but also sadness, depression, and loneliness. When driven to extremes animals will terminate their own lives be it by starvation, suffocation, or blunt force trauma. The most common type of animal self-termination is that in which an animal (like a dog) forms a very strong bond with either a human being or another an animal and then loses that significant other. Many intelligent animals form such bonds and they engage in a broad array of behaviors indicating that they are aware of the absence of their companion. For example, dogs in such situations sometimes go into depression and reject food and attention until they eventually die. The inactivity caused by depression is not the same as suicide, even though it may lead to death. If dogs were to actively engage in behavior that would obviously lead to their own demise, like throwing themselves under cars or running off cliffs, then this could indicate awareness of death and thus be considered suicide. A much more plausible explanation for the fatal inactivity of dogs and other intelligent mammals is that they are paralyzed by feelings of grief and loss. Observed behavior does not suggest that they know that their lives will cease.
Tarsiers have been known to intentionally injure or kill themselves due to unhappiness or stress of being in an enclosure. Because of this reason they are not in zoos. In captivity, the tarsier can be so extremely distressed it may die of psychological trauma and have even been reported to smash their heads against objects resulting in fatality.
Some zoologists have noted that African Elephants deliberately pick up and scatter the bones of deceased elephants. This could be taken as a sign that they are aware of their own mortality, but elephants do not engage in nearly the range of behaviors we would expect if they were truly aware that they could die. The bone scattering could be explained in a variety of other ways. It could, for example, be a simple survival behavior that hides their migration routes or feeding patterns.
As opposed to elephants, all known human cultures indicate their awareness of death in many different ways. Even though the world's cultures have tremendously different ideas about what happens to an individual after life ends, they all agree that some dramatic change of state occurs at the moment of death. Moreover, each culture indicates its awareness of mortality through a combination of rituals, taboos, myths, and linguistic expressions. In order to conclude that a species is aware of either life or death, it should also exhibit a broad range of indicative behaviors. No known animal engages in a sufficiently wide range behaviors that could exhibit awareness of either life or death. Without such an awareness, animals cannot be said to commit suicide even though they may inadvertently kill themselves.
It has also been observed that, under the right circumstances, scorpions
will commit suicide by repeatedly stinging themselves in the head. These circumstances generally involving very high temperature situations. This behavior is likely an attempt by the scorpion to use its neural toxin to alleviate its current discomfort. Because scorpions show no other signs of being aware that such a thing as death exists, we have no reason to call this suicide.
Some animals die because of their own actions but it is difficult to classify that as Suicide. When certain bees sting or mate, they lose their stinger and die from that injury. There is little evidence suggesting that bees know that the use of their stinger will result in their own death.
The same occurs when some types of spiders mate. The male is sometimes eaten by the female shortly after the copulate. Then in other situations the female has her eggs hatch within herself so they can have a nutritious meal as they eat their way out. The same is the case with Praying Mantises. Either after (or DURING) the mating process, the female eats the males head and eventually the rest of his body.
All of these examples suggest that animals can kill themselves under certain circumstances but that they do so inadvertently. Even depressed animals who are clearly suffering great emotional pain, do not seem to be aware that their inactivity will lead to their own death.
Lemmings also are said to take their own lives. Seeing as these fat little rodents can't swim, they sink. So when they leap into the water -forgot why the heck they do- they sink.
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