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Book of the week

Playing possum : how animals understand death

"How animals conceive of death and dying-and what they can teach us about our own relationships with mortality. When the opossum feels threatened, she becomes paralyzed. Her body temperature plummets, her breathing and heart rates drop to a minimum, and her glands simulate the smell of a putrefying corpse. Playing Possum explores what the opossum and other creatures can teach us about how we and other species understand mortality, and demonstrates that the concept of death, far from being a uniquely human attribute, is widespread in the animal kingdom. With humor and empathy, Susana Monsó tells the stories of ants who attend their own funerals, chimpanzees who clean the teeth of their dead, dogs who snack on their caregivers, crows who avoid the places where they saw a carcass, elephants obsessed with collecting ivory, and whales who carry their dead for weeks. Monsó, one of today's leading experts on animal cognition and ethics, shows how there are more ways to conceive of mortality than the human way, and challenges the notion that the only emotional reactions to death worthy of our attention are ones that resemble our own. Blending philosophical insight with new evidence from behavioral science and comparative psychology,...

Last updated 01/28/2025 by S. Wilson

University Archives & Digital Special Collections

University of Detroit Chorus Collection
Dichotomy: School of Architecture Student Journal
Maurice Greenia, Jr. Collections: Poetic Express Volume 2 Number 11
University of Detroit Football Collection: University of Detroit vs. Drake University Program
University of Detroit Yearbook Collection: The Tower
Maurice Greenia, Jr. Collections: Seaspray
University of Detroit Football Collection: University of Detroit vs. Texas Tech Program
Fr. Edward J. Dowling, S.J. Marine Historical Collection: Green Bay
Fr. Edward J. Dowling, S.J. Marine Historical Collection: 1
University of Detroit Chorus Collection: Quintones - 1964
Dichotomy: School of Architecture Student Journal
University of Detroit Yearbook Collection: The Tower 1931
Maurice Greenia, Jr. Collections: Oriental Screen
University of Detroit Chorus Collection
Dichotomy: School of Architecture Student Journal
Fr. Edward J. Dowling, S.J. Marine Historical Collection: Miss Mudhen II - preparing for conversion to a dredge
University of Detroit Yearbook Collection: The Tower 1933
University of Detroit Football Collection: University of Detroit vs. Hillsdale Program

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