‘Elephants show immense interest in corpses’: Susana Monsó, the philosopher examining what animals know about death

Do other species understand that life ends? Do they mourn and even bury their dead? The Spanish academic and writer is looking for answers

An opossum will play dead to escape a predator. Ants remove the corpses of fallen soldiers from their nest. A group of chimpanzees will gather to bid farewell to one of their own. Like humans, animals have complicated, surprising relationships with death. Susana Monsó, associate professor of philosophy at the National University of Distance Education in Madrid, examines animal perceptions of dying in her new book, Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death.

Most pet owners wouldn’t think their dog or cat pays much mind to the great beyond. How have animals been observed to respond to death?
We don’t see a standard response in every species, but rather many different responses to death. We’ve seen many cases of mammalian mothers carrying the remains of their deceased babies – a very common phenomenon, especially among primate mothers, that might be an expression of grief. There was a very famous case of a chimpanzee seen cleaning the teeth of the corpse of an adolescent male of the group. We’ve seen another chimpanzee play-parenting the corpse of another species. And there are many cases of companion animals feeding on the remains of their caregivers.

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