section_path: In biology/Grief in animals
section_name: Grief in animals
paragraph_text: Grief in animals
  
  Animals have sometimes shown grief for their partners or "friends." When two chimpanzees form a bond together, sexual or not, and one of them dies, the surviving chimpanzee will show signs of grief, ripping out their hair in anger and starting to cry; if the body is removed, they will resist, they will eventually go quiet when the body is gone, but upon seeing the body again, the chimp will return to a violent state.
  
  Furthermore, anthropologist Barbara J. King has suggested that one way to evaluate the expression of grief in animals is to look for altered behaviors such as social withdrawal, disrupted eating or sleeping, expression of affect, or increased stress reactions in response to the death of a family member, mate, or friend. These criteria do not assume the ability to anticipate death, understand its finality, or experience emotions equivalent to those of humans, but at the same time do not rule out the possibility of those abilities existing in some animals or that different kinds of emotional experiences might constitute grief. Based on these criteria, King gives examples of observed potential mourning behaviors in animals such as cetaceans, apes and monkeys, elephants, domesticated animals (including dogs, cats, rabbits, horses, and farmed animals), giraffes, peccaries, donkeys, prairie voles, and some species of birds.