...on animal suicide

Do animals commit suicide?

Suicide is "the act or an instance of taking one's own life voluntarily and intentionally," according to Merriam-Webster. Birds, for example, might pull out some or all of their feathers, sometimes completely denuding themselves before proceeding to peck at their flesh. Primates may bite themselves, and dogs  and cats might practice excessive licking (like our cat at home). A pod of 61 whales beached themselves at Farewell Spit in New Zealand a while ago. It’s not clear why whales beach themselves but there are various speculative theories.

Is suicide a thing in the animal kingdom?

Yeah sort of, there is plenty of evidence that animals engage in self-destructive behaviour. In addition to the beached whales, ducks and dogs have been observed drowning themselves, cows have walked off cliffs, and naked mole rats leave the colony to die when infected with a communicable disease. It requires an awareness of one’s own existence, an ability to speculate about the future, and the knowledge that an act will result in death. Dolphins, many primates, magpies, and elephants can recognize themselves in a mirror, suggesting self-awareness.

No matter the motivation, self-destruction appears to be something that exists in even the simplest life forms.

The Romans saw animal suicide as both natural and noble; an animal they commonly reported as suicidal was one they respected, the horse. "Everything naturally loves itself," wrote Aquinas in the 13th century. "The result being that everything naturally keeps itself in being."

Thomas Joiner, a Florida State University psychologist, does take that stand. His new book, Myths About Suicide (I’m currently reading his book and it is awesome), links the suicidal tendencies of living creatures. "Across nature there seems to be the same kind of calculation," says Joiner. "Is my death worth more than my life? Suicides of all kinds involve this calculation, from bacteria and insects to conventional suicide deaths and even suicide terrorists."

Of course, the suicide thing also occurs amongst dolphins, animals considered the second after apes in what concerns intelligence level.

In some animals, sex is pure suicidal, at least for the males. The female praying mantis starts eating the male while still copulating, head first! And in some spiders, in which the male is a pygmy compared to the female, sex is followed by its own sacrifice in the jaws of the female. In the end, males are just a piece of protein for the hungry eggs developing females. Is this a suicidal act of the male? Rather no, as he primarily has sex on his mind.

So where does that leave one of the real, solid examples of animal “suicide” – the worker bee stinging a perceived threat, but dying in the process? The bee’s sting is famously barbed, and as the bee tries to fly away, it pulls out its innards, including the venom gland which not only continues to pulse venom down the sting, but also releases alarm pheromones which attract other bees. The downside is that the bee dies.

I wonder if any other animals are “consciously“(rather than instinctively) aware that they need air to breathe? Could they drown themselves, by understanding that water will kill them? Or fly into the wind shield of an oncoming car? 

So where does it leave “natural selection” and the fact that educated human beings commit suicide?

“Is it the tongue that speaks from the inside

And the voice of silence no more?”