*Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death*

 [[{“value”:”That is a forthcoming book by Susana Monsó, and I found it both interesting and illuminating.  Here is one excerpt: This fixation on the face suggests that Firuláis’s initial motivation was probably not to eat his human, but rather that this behavior started as an attempt to make him react.  Our face is the part
The post *Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death* appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.”}]] 

That is a forthcoming book by Susana Monsó, and I found it both interesting and illuminating.  Here is one excerpt:

This fixation on the face suggests that Firuláis’s initial motivation was probably not to eat his human, but rather that this behavior started as an attempt to make him react.  Our face is the part of our bodies that our canine friends p ay the most attention to, for it is key to understanding our emotions and communicating with us.  Consequently, it is to be expected that Firuláis, upon seeing his caretaker lying still after the gunshot, began to try to get a reaction from him by nudging his face with his snout.  In the absence of a response, and in order to clam himself down or out of sheer frustration, he might have started licking, the nibbling, and once blood was drawn the temptatoin to take a bit might have been overwhelming.  That is, it’s likely that Firuláis’s love for his keeper and his anguish upon his lack of response were at the root of his behavior.

Talk about “model this”!  Comparative thanatology edition, of course.  You can pre-order here.

The post *Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death* appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

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