ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2021
Why do some primate mothers carry their infant's corpse? A cross-species comparative study.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 24 citations in OpenAlex.
- Post-mortem infant-directed behaviours in wild Guinea baboons.Primates; journal of primatology · 2026Article
- Unveiling animal death cognition: the role of social systems.Science China. Life sciences · 2026Article
- A lethal incident during an intergroup encounter in bonobos.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Responses to dying and dead adult companions in a free-ranging, provisioned group of Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata).Primates; journal of primatology · 2025Article
- Camera Traps Document Infant Corpse Carrying Behaviour in Multiple Unhabituated Chimpanzee Populations.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Macaque mothers' responses to the deaths of their infants.Biology letters · 2025Article
- Necrophilic behaviour in wild stump-tailed macaques (Macaca arctoides).Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Stillbirth of a mandrill (Mandrillus sphinx) in the wild: perinatal behaviors and delivery sequences.Primates; journal of primatology · 2024Article
- Record of thanatology and cannibalism in drills (Mandrillus leucophaeus).Primates; journal of primatology · 2023Article
- Reactions to a dead adult female in Japanese macaques at Arashiyama: Why did a non-affiliated female groom the corpse?Primates; journal of primatology · 2023Article
- Dead-infant carrying by chimpanzee mothers in the Budongo Forest.Primates; journal of primatology · 2022Article
- Viewing the rare through public lenses: insights into dead calf carrying and other thanatological responses in Asian elephants using YouTube videos.Royal Society open science · 2022Article
- Maternal caretaking behavior towards a dead juvenile in a wild, multi-level primate society.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Staring death in the face: chimpanzees' attention towards conspecific skulls and the implications of a face module guiding their behaviour.Royal Society open science · 2022Article
- Why do some primate mothers carry their infant's corpse? A cross-species comparative study.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Non-human primates respond to the death of a conspecific in diverse ways, some of which may present phylogenetic continuity with human thanatological responses. Of these responses, infant corpse carrying by mothers (ICC) is the most frequently reported. Despite its prevalence, quantitative analyses of this behaviour are scarce and inconclusive. We compiled a database of 409 published cases across 50 different primate species of mothers' responses to their infants' deaths and used Bayesian phylogenetic regressions with an information-theoretic approach to test hypotheses proposed to explain between- and within-species variation in ICC. We found that ICC was more likely when the infant's death was non-traumatic (e.g. illness) versus traumatic (e.g. infanticide), and when the mother was younger. These results support the death detection hypothesis, which proposes that ICC occurs when there are fewer contextual or sensory cues indicating death. Such an interpretation suggests that primates are able to attain an awareness of death. In addition, when carried, infant age affected ICC duration, with longer ICC observed for younger infants. This result suggests that ICC is a by-product of strong selection on maternal behaviour. The findings are discussed in the context of the evolution of emotion, and implications for evolutionary thanatology are proposed.
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