Talk:Animal suicide

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 9 September 2021 and 3 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): SwallowInTheTrees. Peer reviewers: Strike2426, Keburt.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 14:18, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Concerns about quality of this article
Apart from needing work to improve formatting, this article appears to be long and badly organised with some information that may not be adequately verified and referenced. It doesn't appear to meet acceptable standards to me. Perhaps someone with an interest in ethology/animal behaviour could take a look. Libby norman (talk) 11:15, 1 May 2013 (UTC) This is an amateur and subjective article. It looks like it was written by a high school graduate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.41.173.232 (talk) 17:45, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Beyond the terrible formatting issues, the bad grammar/language of the article, is the problem that this article constantly cites the Softpedia source, which itself has no citations and no verification of any of the claims made in it. It is hard to take any article seriously when it appears to be written by a 12 year old for a class project. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Phlewp (talk • contribs) 19:41, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

This article works on the assumption that animal behaviors resulting in death are examples of suicide. The Overtoun Bridge claim is a good example. There are many alternate explanations for what has happened at that location and the spontaneous suicide of otherwise healthy and happy dogs is probably the least likely. The author has a very undeveloped definition of suicide and a poor understanding of how to reach logical conclusions. Concluding that suicide has occurred in humans is often problematic, many times relying on whether a note was left or there is some other evidence of intent. This article is more of a hindrance than an aid to a rational discussion of whether or not suicide occurs in animals other than humans.

I suggest we revert to this revision: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Animal_suicide&oldid=545939432 - 83.100.233.169 (talk) 21:01, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I have written a version at User:Brambleberry of RiverClan/sandbox/Books. Although it is by no means complete, it cuts down on the OR and leaves it down to bare facts; we can expand later. ö   Brambleberry   of   RiverClan  14:22, 16 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Not bad, although I see no reason to throw out the current comparisons to human suicide (in the current article's lede, and the end of its "Unexplainable cases" section), and the section on "Self-destruction". --McGeddon (talk) 14:36, 16 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Added the comparisons to human suicide, although I had to change the self-destruction section as some of it was already covered in "Suicidal behavior" and salmonella isn't an animal. ö   Brambleberry   of   RiverClan  15:10, 16 August 2013 (UTC)
 * After over three weeks without further discussion, I'm going to be bold and go ahead with the changes. ö   Brambleberry   of   RiverClan  13:50, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Supernatural sense?
Is the term 'supernatural sense' listed in the Theories section, the proper term to describe senses which animals may have that humans do not? Just because humans don't share certain senses with other animals doesn't mean their abilities aren't common or natural, which is what 'supernatural' suggests. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Demono (talk • contribs) 19:42, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

synthesis
This article smacks of synthesis, with a long list of unrelated references making no connection with the first source upon which the article is presumably based. There's apparently no such thing as actual animal suicide, beyond the anecdote of one dog that supposedly drowned itself. Other supposed suicides are hoaxes (lemmings) or behavior due to infection, or vague anecdote. Are we to take seriously a deer leaping from a cliff to amount to suicide, rather than an attempt to escape. Until we have better sources this needs to remain tagged, if not deleted entirely. μηδείς (talk) 03:16, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree and have similar concerns. I flagged the article quite a while back as problematic and I think it's had enough time now to be improved if that were possible or worthwhile. I've now suggested a deletion. Libby norman (talk) 20:20, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

"Misconceptions"
If there is a section dedicated to the idea that the notion of lemmings committing mass suicide is a misconception, shouldn't it say what really happens, as an explanation of why this is a misconception? In addition to this information, it would also help the reader understand if this is significantly different from 1500 sheep walking off a cliff. --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 02:47, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

pea aphids and "autothysis"
Pea aphids are included in a section entitled "Self-destruction" with the indication "See also: Autothysis". In that article, pea aphids are not mentioned. Is it because they do not do autothysis? Nothing of this is mentioned in the article on Pea aphids. --96.127.214.149 (talk) 03:17, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

New Additions
Hello, I plan on adding some information about biological altruism, as well as some specific examples of animals and filling in some extra details. I'm going to fix up some of the wording and sentence structure as well. Parsonrl (talk) 01:40, 2 November 2018 (UTC)Parsonrl

Nothing on beaching Cetaceans?
--Pitke (talk) 09:06, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Removed the vervet monkey sentence
I removed it because it doesn’t count as suicide, it’s not even guaranteed that they will get killed by the predator.. Editor man12115 (talk) 04:16, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Unclear sentence

 * These actions are performed when the reproductive fitness of others outweighs the reproductive fitness of the individual.

^ This isn't very precise, is it? Which "others"? Probably not just random animals in the surroundings. I think this could be written in a much more specific manner by referring to e.g. kin selection theory, but I'm not a biologist, so I can't do it. --84.63.210.36 (talk) 02:06, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

New lead, section, and article reorganization
The information itself is passable for the moment, but it is in dire need of a rewrite for clarity, and in some cases, better sources. I believe an important part of this article is that there is no example of strict, explicit suicide. There are behaviors that may seem suicidal (colloquially speaking), but they can't be considered suicide. I believe there is a place for a small description or summary of each of those behaviors in this article, but those behaviors will be given the depth they deserve on their own articles. I believe animal suicide is a good article to compile all of these "suicidal" behaviors, but it is not the place to discuss them in depth. It is just a place to clear up which ones are and aren't suicide in the way it is used for humans. I will try to link to main articles about these things as much as I can.

I'm going to rewrite the lead of this article. I find the definition of suicide for animals is far too broad compared to what is considered suicide for humans. I find the article as a whole to be more of a half hazard list of things that vaguely resemble suicide, so I'm going to make it much clearer that non-human animal suicide is not definitively accepted by all in the scientific community. I'm also adding a new section to define what would constitute a true example of animal suicide, and the difficulties in empirically assessing this. The article will be reorganized to fit these changes by adding clearer section headers.

I have not gotten to it yet, but I would like to add sections on beaching cetaceans under the Interference section and what actually causes them to do so. Possible future additions could include Fleeing Behavior (animal falling of cliff while attempting to flee) and Poor Risk Appraisal (animal initiating a fight it can not possibly win) under the Maladaptive Behavior section. Other examples of altruism, group defense or sacrifice could go under the Group Defense (could be renamed Kin Selection) section.SwallowInTheTrees (talk) 13:03, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

South Park
In the episode Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset, the pets of Paris Hilton do this.