Do animals mourn their dead.

[Catherine]

I had forgotten about the elephant whisperer.  It is not just that they mourned, it is remarkable that they knew that he had died.
We know much less about animals than we think we know.

I have seen hamsters grieve. I have seen them simply stop living because they lost a mate. I can understand why Jet was so deeply affected by Misty's death. They had a close bond. Knowing she was dead and smelling her "presence" would have been too much for him.

I even observed Goldfish and Koi grieving. I lost my entire tank of fish to a parasite and it took about two weeks for all of them to die. Some of those fish had been together as hatchlings. Darcy swam around Sylvia as she was dying and when she was gone he  just gave up and died too.  The Koi were even more upset. They watched a friend die and then they huddled together almost doing a fish hug.  I sat beside the tank and fish would lie on the bottom near me as they were dying. All of us mourned together and tried to comfort each other and be as close as possible.

People who deny animal feelings are not very observant and possibly not too aware of their own feelings. We don't always know what an animal is feeling. Some people are much better at understanding animals. Still if you see the basic signs of an emotion, probably that is what that animal is feeling.

Even my reptiles grieve. They all missed Tarragon when she died. I think the pink tongued skink still misses her. He has never been the same.  The three baby beardies that I raised together spent their entire lives together. When one died the other two died within the month. They were very close.

I always let the others see their dead friend. Then they know. Once when a male hamster got out and got killed I didn't show his body to his mate. She grieved terribly and searched for months. She had a way of looking at me and I am sure she was asking "have you found him yet". If I had showed her the body she would have known he was dead and accepted it. I never made that mistake again. I even showed Louis the Pine snake to Ella his mate. She looked him over and rested her head over his for a little while and then went back into her den. Before that she had been restlessly searching.