Do any animals ever committ suicide?

balconyview

I had two salmon-crested cockatoos, oh, about 15 years ago. They were in love (I swear in some pictures you can the female smile). Both were secluded and nesting in their birdie condo on the patio and I did not bother them for about a week. I went to check on the food and water supply and peeked into the nest. The male had died. An autopsy revealed he died of a pancreatic disease which was not contageous. The female was in such shock and depression from losing her mate that she eventually died of starvation. It took me and my family a long time to get past the loss and I now have two cockatiels -- mother and son. No more couples or broken birdie hearts. May 23 02, 12:35 PM

Fact	Actually, a few rare spiders kill themselves after giving birth so their young will have something to feed on. How noble... May 24 02, 2:11 AM

Siskin

No! Natural selection favours individuals that leave as many high-quality offspring as possible. A creature that kills itself before it reproduces leaves no descendants, so the genes for this behaviour die out with the carrier. Mass migration carried out by some animals such as the lemming and wildebeest may lead to accidental deaths but have nothing to do with suicide. http://www.discover.com/ask/main59.html May 27 02, 4:14 PM

Senior Moments

It has been suggested that dolphins in captivity have done it. One has battered itself to death and soon after its companion did the same. In nature altruism leading to death is quite common: bees protect their hive and die doing so; lionesses can die defending their cubs; some spiders may be devoured by their young; common octopi look after their young and do not feed themselves sometimes to the point of death. Certain male bees are ripped open by the queen during mating and male preying mantises may be eaten by their mate during copulation. There are some parasites that seem to cause suicide in their hosts. Some ants when infected by nematodes will then stand at the top of stalks; some bumblebee parasites can make the bee dive into ponds, the parasites then infect water snails; some freshwater shrimp parasites make the shrimp swim at the surface until they are eaten. http://www.sciencenet.org.uk/database/Social/9609/s00204d.html Fri May 24 01:41:13 CDT 2002 Jun 06 02, 2:48 AM

Jack Flash

I understand that swans mate for life, and if one of the pair has an untimely death the other will pine away and eventually die. This is not of course suicide as such, but dying of a broken heart could be seen as an act of self-destruction. Jun 06 02, 5:09 AM

Winged_Wolf

The short answer to this is 'yes'. The most obvious point is that humans are animals, therefore rather obviously, animals do commit suicide. The long answer is that there is no evidence to suggest that any animal OTHER than a human has committed an act of suicide with full knowledge that it would be killed by its actions. Some animals will deliberately end their lives to complete their reproductive cycle, or in the case of some communal insects, to defend their colony. However, this is an instinctive action, not a reasoned one. Birds are said sometimes to pine away or die of starvation when a mate dies--however, there is no documented evidence to suggest that this ever happens. (Such deaths are usually due to infection or other illness, possibly brought on by stress, but definitely not simply a matter of depression leading to failure to eat). In species that mate for life, the death of a mate generally results in the living bird seeking out a new mate rather quickly--these birds have a great need for companionship. (Breeding a son to a mother would be termed line-breeding, by the way...few animals will refrain from pair-bonding and breeding with a parent or sibling) Whale and dolphin strandings also cannot rightly be considered suicide. In the vast majority of cases, pods of stranded animals are found with one or several of the animals being sick or injured. These sick or injured animals may strand themselves because they are weak, and having trouble rising to breathe. In such cases, the social animals have refused to abandon their stricken friends, and the tide went out on them, leaving them stranded as well. Some dolphins will engage in risky practices, chasing fish into very shallow water--they may occasionally become stranded as a result. May 27 07, 6:08 PM

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