Talk:Apparent death

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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): RandomCitizen27. Peer reviewers: Sneaker male, Buginajar, Tdl120300.

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Sharks breathing
Surely sharks don't breathe, they don't have lungs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.132.166.64 (talk) 01:52, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Sharks do breathe. They just don't inhale oxygen. Breathing refers to the respiration act of inhalation of water through the mouth and exhalation through the gills. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:46:C780:3FF0:2408:94F9:21C3:FB47 (talk) 14:02, 28 May 2020 (UTC)


 * As I have always understood the method in which sharks breath, though, is that they actually cannot breathe in the same manner that bony ray-finned fishes do. Those fish have 'gill flaps' that open and close, and facilitate the flow of water through the gills. sharks, however, have only 'gill slits' that do not open and close, and in order to breathe they must remain in forward motion in the water, so water can passively flow through their gills. Firejuggler86 (talk) 10:37, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Added section 'As a scientific tool'
I have added a section on tonic immobility as a scientific tool. There are many papers on this, so I restricted my coverage. Unfortunately, this entire page is now a little clumsy with several interpretations and descriptions. I have added one of several verifiable sources regarding sharks and tonic immobility, however, I feel using sharks as the lead example of this behaviour is rather imbalanced. I'm prepared to make the changes to redress the balance, however, I do not wish to cause offence or be accused of vandalism. Does anyone have any comments?DrChrissy (talk) 13:34, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Abuse Report: Plagarism
either this article is partially plagarized, or has been plagarized in the following article: http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Tonic-immobility —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chrishibbard7 (talk • contribs) 18:25, 6 July 2009 (UTC)


 * If you look at the bottom of the page you link to it says:

The Wikipedia article included on this page is licensed under the GFDL. --86.151.252.119 (talk) 01:23, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Tickling Trout
Does "tickling trout" have anything to do with this subject? Poachers claim to be able to catch fish this way.

It has been said that a useful means of calming an angry hornet is to catch it in one's mouth, then close the lips. The hornet, believing it to be night, will immediately fall asleep, though this may be a vicious lie.


 * Like anybody in their right mind is ever gonna try it!
 * Haha, it's easy enough (and much safer) to test it by simply trapping a hornet in a tight box, which should have the same effect as trapping it in your mouth, and see if it falls asleep. Doesn't seem like it would work though.--M m hawk 01:35, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Playing Dead
I wanted to research the subject of "Playing Dead", but there was only an article on a band called Play Dead. After searching a while I found this article, and also one on Playing possum. Seems they should be merged, and there should be a disambiguation link from the band's article. Metaeducation 18:43, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Cannot merge
Tonic isnt playing dead, playing dead is a defense voluntary action, tonic is a chemical nervous thingie.--HalaTruth(ሐላቃህ) 13:23, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree, they seem like different mechanisms with the same result. --Sean 19:29, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree as well, I'm watching shark week right now on TV, and it's completely different. Playing dead is a mostly voluntary act performed by the animal, whereas tonic immobility is something the scientists perform on another animal. Although, it should be noted that the flipping sharks upside down trick only works with the smaller sharks -- medium sharks enter this tonic immobility by being touched on their snouts, and the largest sharks sometimes need to be touched on the sides of their snouts in front of their eyes. These are the facts I've heard and seen from the Discovery Channel scientists, but all of these reactions leads me to believe that tonic immobility in sharks is a completely different thing than with other animal species. Sharks are one of the few animals with advanced electrical sensors for their surrounding environments -- by covering the receptor areas on their head where these sensors are clustered is how it appears to work. Which is why this tonic phenomenon in other animals probably works by exploiting something entirely different in other species' anatomies. Fainting goats, opossums playing dead, rabbits freezing in fear, etc, etc is most likely due to a rush of chemicals, whereas tonic sharks are at a loss for electrical stimulus and become temporarily paralyzed. At first I thought it only worked on sharks when the scuba divers used the chain mail suits (metal gloves over receptors) but it appears to even work with uncovered hands as well.
 * How would you experimentally distinguish between "voluntary" and "involuntary" acts in non-human animals? Currently the article has a section Tonic immobility and a section Thanatosis, but the text suggests they are synonyms. If they are not, proper distinctive criteria are needed. --2.204.226.50 (talk) 01:58, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
 * It's not a matter of one being voluntary and the other not. I've been doing some research to prepare for editing this article, and thanatosis, apparent death, and tonic immobility are all the same thing. When animals are put into tonic immobility by humans, it is more often referred to as "animal hypnosis" (see chicken hypnosis for an example), but they are considered as synonyms in the literature. See these sources for more information and some definitions.  I am going to change the layout of the article to reflect that these terms are synonyms. Tonic immobility is preferred in the literature because it is inherently more neutral than thanatosis, so I am going to disband the thanatosis section and merge it with the tonic immobility section. RandomCitizen27 (talk) 01:24, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Fainting goats
Saw this on Discovery Channel. Does it have a place here? --Zeizmic 16:39, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Tiger Sharks
Tiger sharks cannot be placed into tonic immobility by placing them upside down. Additionally, you can also put most sharks (tigers excluded) by putting your hand on their snouts. Tiger sharks are a bit different in the sense that instead of putting your hand on their snout, you must use 2 hands, one on each side just in front of the eyes.

This was evidenced by Discovery's Shark Man which aired during the 2007 Shark Week.
 * Actually, a tiger shark was shown successfully placed into tonic by inversion (turning upside down) during the same program, after the tiger had been hooked and pulled up alongside a boat. It was only when "inversion tonic" was attempted in open water, on a free-swimming tiger shark, that it failed (the shark simply turned back upright and went back to swimming).  Mike Rutzen, the man making the attempt, believed that "inversion tonic" failed in that case because the shark was unconstrained and not under duress.  "Snout tonic" (placing the hand on the snout) appeared far less disabling than "inversion tonic".  The shark becomes largely immobile, docile, and relaxed under "snout tonic", but still seems vaguely aware of its surroundings, unlike the coma-like state "inversion tonic" induces.  Some sharks appeared to voluntarily seek out "snout tonic", in one case even pushing another shark out of the way to be the one to receive it, and eschewing food in favor of it.  My speculation (which wouldn't belong in this article, I admit) is that this "snout tonic" can be an enjoyable state for sharks, but that the shark must more-or-less voluntarily submit to it for it to last for very long.  Prio 11:31, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

"Tonic"
Is the link to tonic (physiology) the accurate etymology for the word in this context? I thought it was short for catatonic. -- AvatarMN 09:16, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Explain?
"''Such actions often prove beneficial in the natural environment but, in the modern world of human intervention, can also be fatal."

It would be good if that last part were to be explained further to the reader. --72.197.35.238 (talk) 02:32, 3 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Only thing I can think of that might be meant is a "deer in the headlights" effect - an animal freezing on a road is just staying in the risk area for much longer. --86.151.252.119 (talk) 01:26, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Humans playing dead
According to this article:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9750471/Connecticut-school-shooting-six-year-old-stayed-alive-by-playing-dead.html

...a six year old girl survived by playing dead during a mass shooting. I doubt a child that young would do that through calculated tactics. Are there any studies suggesting that humans instinctively have this behavior? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.182.172.35 (talk) 01:15, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Etymology / thanato(p)sis
The article currently states:


 * The term "thanatopsis" (Greek: thanatos "death" + opsis "a sight, view") may be more correct than "thanatosis" which simply refers to death. The addition of the term "-opsis" lends the meaning that the animal only appears to be dead but is in fact alive..

This is a kind of pointless tangent for the article. Thanatopsis already has an understood meaning – a contemplation of death (possibly more as the title of Thanatopsis by Bryant).

I think the editor perhaps means that, analyzed properly, 'thanatosis' is the act of dying or the state of being actually dead. However, life scientists and physiologists particularly have used -osis somewhat loosely for centuries for the physical condition of various things, and it's not a huge leap for 'death state' to be the gist of it, without implying that anything has died.

It just seems somewhat weird and speculative so I removed the section. moogsi(blah) 19:49, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

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Purpose and intention
There are several places in the article where a language of purpose is used. For instance (with my emphases), "the Virginia opossum, which is famous for pretending to be dead when threatened" and "Cichlids of the genus Nimbochromis express thanatosis as a form of aggressive mimicry, playing dead to attract prey". This implies some sort of conscious planning or strategizing. But there is no purpose in instincts. Instincts are created by natural selection, and they can be interpreted (by us humans) as having different functions, but not any purpose. I don't think we have data to suggest that fish actually have theory of mind of the minds of other species and actually use thanatosis as a conscious strategy (see perhaps Theory of mind in animals). I don't even think the oppossum knows what it is doing. By saying "pretending to be dead" or "playing dead", we claim that it is a conscious decision as we would see in humans (except when humans might go into a potentially instinctual thanatosis such as during a rape). I don't think we have reason to believe that thanatosis is a conscious and strategized act and thus has a purpose. It's "just" an instinct with an certain potential effect – and as such it has no purpose or intention, but is just a function with an effect.

Some might then argue that we use the word "purpose" and "strategy" in an entirely different sense when we talk about biological evolution. And while of course that could potentially make sense (all words are allowed to have several distinct meanings if we all agree on them), use of such wording towards laypersons (our audience) would still convey an air of intention and thus a confusion about natural selection and evolution which, as far as we know, is completely devoid of any purpose or intention. The whole point of the theory of evolution is that natural selection happens without purpose or intention, but due to randomness and the resulting effects of that randomness. Also, I don't see much of that wording in actual scientific literature, so I don't think scientists really use these apparently intention-conveying words in an almost opposite way to the normal use of those words. On the contrary, I think especially scientists (with some unfortunate exceptions such as David Attenborough who I think anthropomorphises to a terrible extent, but maybe he can't be classified as a "real" research scientist?) are quite aware that evolution has no purpose and that most of animal behaviour, with some exceptions in intelligent animals, is simply instinctual and thus most likely without any consciously planned strategy or intention.

I have already corrected a few of those wordings, but not all. --Jhertel (talk) 16:22, 9 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Trigger warning - what follows involves comments on negligent rape.
 * Yes, definitely, and humans consciously pretending to be dead or irresponsive to survive a bear attack should not be in this article: it isn't at all the same thing.
 * The distinction matters because it confuses things in implying that it is a choice or strategy when people cannot respond to their attacker due to tonic immobility in the context of negligent rape (which I am used to hearing defined as taking silence and irresponsiveness as consent to sex in a conscious person). It matters morally, socially, and legally, that people understand that this lack of response is a unconscious "reflex" over which the woman has no control rather than a conscious strategy.
 * (I am not sure whether or not referring to this response as a "reflex" is technically correct or analogical).
 * These links may be useful, if they count as reliable.
 * https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0091305722000132
 * https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/tonic-immobility
 * FloweringOctopus (talk) 13:11, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
 * FloweringOctopus (talk) 13:11, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

Editing of rabbits section
Hello! I am going to remove the disputed section on tonic immobility in rabbits and replace it with new (hopefully less contentious). I'm making the change due to the following reasons. The resource they sited only led me to conference proceedings, not a peer reviewed paper where the researchers scientifically reported their methods, data, results, conclusions, etc.. The article was about how tonic immobility in rabbits induces a stress response, which makes sense when you remember that TI is usually induced because of attack by predators. The article was also very neutral in its wording, unlike the tone of the rabbit paragraph. I think whoever wrote this section in the wiki article was referring more to the consequences of the work (e.g., the proceedings were supposedly cited to support the notion that rabbits "hate what they appear to enjoy"), rather than what the authors actually concluded and were trying to report in their work, so what was written wasn't an accurate (or neutral) interpretation of the study. The proceedings said nothing about rabbits "hating" being put in tonic immobility, just that it causes a stress response in them. Furthermore, I couldn't locate any articles (scientific or otherwise) that cited this article to advance or perPETuate (haha) the idea that rabbits "hate what they appear to enjoy." The wiki paragraph also did not provide a citation for rabbits "sometimes sleeping on their backs" but uses that statement as a basis for refuting the meaning that they inferred from the article. Finally, language such as "a single study in rabbits" and "failed to explore" is not neutral which violates the Wikipedia rules for articles. That combined with the rest of the paragraph that extrapolates the meaning of the article, I decided to remove this paragraph and start anew. RandomCitizen27 (talk) 00:35, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I have made the change now and deleted the tag that labelled the section as disputed. It has been there since June 2020, so I think it was time for an update. Cheers! RandomCitizen27 (talk) 00:45, 22 November 2021 (UTC)