A question of Grief

[GrayLadyPat]

I know some animals are capable of showing some sort of grief. I have seen a dog mourn for his owner, and I have seen a cockatoo pluck his body bald because his owner was away on vacation.

I lost a relatively small fish today. His "big brother" who hung out with him hasn't been the same. He seems to be "looking" for his friend. Has anyone else seen signs of grief from their discus when one of their tankmates dies? I don't know why, but I always thought of fish as having little to no memory other than pavlovian responses to feeding time and seeing one walk by the tank.

Just a curious question from a discus newbie.

[Jeff O]

I had a retired breeding pair of Wb's I dont know exactly how old they were but id imagine they where getting up there. Anyway, after the male passed away the female looked around for him and 2 days later stopped eating all togather and I lost her 1 week later. Good question! Im curious to see what others say.
Jeff

[Bill63SG]

I was ready to say this is a bunch of BS,and then I remembered ab oscar and a severum we had for quite some time jn a 55 before I had discus.After the severum died,the oscar just wasnt the same,and I think he lasted about another 3 weeks.

[TURQ64]

Honestly...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropomorphism

[magewynd]

I believe it is a matter of personal belief. I googled "Karma in Christianity" the other day and my eyes still hurt from the amount of "Discussion" available on the internet.

[Cullymoto]

I do believe in this phenomena.
I had a breeding pair, ocean green and red turq that were together for over two years.
One day my 6" male red turq decided that he could fit under a piece of driftwood... scratched himself pretty bad and ended up dying through infection... anyway...
When I took him out to place him in quarantine, the ocean green female changed, she was constantly searching the tank, ignored food unless it crossed her path.
It took over a week for the turq to pass, I knew in some way that he wasnt going to make it, and shifted my attention to the ocean green. I placed her into the quarantine with the red turq (against all advice i know) and both fish began showing signs of happyness. Even the at the time, half dead turq stood his fins up and colored up a little.
I continued attempts to treat him, while she was there for comfort, and enduring the treatments. She ate fine and was more or less happy. When the turq finally did pass she was there to see it happen as I was at work.
I placed her back in the main tank where she was a little "mopey" for a day then she assumed her role as the alpha fish in the tank.
She now has a classic leopard pattern fish as a boy toy and is doing well. Sorry for the long story

[John_Nicholson]

No they do not. They are a shoaling fish. Their instincts tel them they are safer in groups. It is when they are by themselves that they get eaten by a larger fish. It is not grief that you are seeing. They have a brain the size of a pencil eraser. They aare concerned about eating, spawning, and not getting eaten.

-john

[GrayLadyPat]

I will be honest... I am not sure I believe in the grief aspect, but I do think that they have patterns in their behavior, and when one of those patterns are disrupted, they are out of sorts. Same mechanic that tells your dog to become impatient if you are not home on time.

Anthropomorphism aside, I think he "misses" his friend, but not as we would. I think it's a disruption in his pattern. It does look like grief, tho... ;-)

[Second Hand Pat]

Judy, you could be right here but I tend to agree with Gary. We as humans are rather bad about appling human emotions and motives onto our animals and this can create a bad situation with any animal that can hurt us. Horses come to mind here. I have seen many people say "My horse hates me" when in reality it is a lack of respect on the animals part when the human allows the horse to intrude into their space.

[Bill63SG]

Aside from my little anecdote,I gotta say I agree with Gary.Just hadnt thought about that oscar for awhile.

[Moon]

I had a pair that spawned and raised quite few few batches of fry over a period of two years. The male was a WC brown and the female domestic turq. I did not like the pairing and decided to seperate them. Within a week the male was dead with no signs of illness whatsoever. This puzzeld me. Was it love sick? who knows.

[nc0gnet0]

http://www.3news.co.nz/No-bird-brain-here-Cockatoo-makes-his-own-tools/tabid/1160/articleID/275660/Default.aspx

I doubt they are capable of remorse, but I do think animals are a little smarter than we give them credit for. Is the ability to differentiate between food containers still a pavlovian response?

We as humans are both guilty of anthropomorphism as well as anthropodenial.

[Jeff O]

http://www.3news.co.nz/No-bird-brain-here-Cockatoo-makes-his-own-tools/tabid/1160/articleID/275660/Default.aspx

I doubt they are capable of remorse, but I do think animals are a little smarter than we give them credit for. Is the ability to differentiate between food containers still a pavlovian response?

We as humans are both guilty of anthropomorphism as well as anthropodenial.



+1


I tend to think humans as a whole look at ourselves as the smartest creatures on this planet. Is this true? Maybe, but we give little too no credit to the other animals that also posses high levels of intelligence. We say we are the smartest yet every day we destroy this planet bit by bit. Jmo...
-Jeff

[Moon]

+1


I tend to think humans as a whole look at ourselves as the smartest creatures on this planet. Is this true? Maybe, but we give little too no credit to the other animals that also posses high levels of intelligence. We say we are the smartest yet every day we destroy this planet bit by bit. Jmo...


-Jeff

Here here. Totally agree

[Orange Crush]

Who knows? They do "act" like it but it is hard to say if it is because of emotional attatchment. However, humans used to think other animals were much dummer than they turned out to be. It will be interesting to see what they find when the scientific tools are capable of it. There is still so much about the human brain we do not know so, I do not think it is right to assume one way or the other what animals think/feel without the science....