# Animal graveyards
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-graveyards/317040
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 15, 2005, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-graveyards/317040 "2005-08-15T02:43:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Amazon\_Floozy\_Goddess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amazon_Floozy_Goddess)
#### Post date: [August 15, 2005, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-graveyards/317040/1 "2005-08-15T02:43:14Z")
Okay, this might seem like a dumb question, but it’s one that’s always nagged at me from time to time.
It seems that whenever a dead wild animal (e.g. bird, squirrel, skunk, raccoon, etc.) is seen, it’s almost always a casualty of some accident: hit by a car, trying to gnaw on power lines, what have you. I don’t think I’ve ever been walking through a park or forest and seen birds or squirrels that had apparently just grown old and dropped dead from a tree.
So the question is: do animals have “somewhere” that they go to die when it comes time? I’ve read about elephant graveyards, certain areas where old elephants will actually go when they know they are dying. Does this hold true for other animals as well? Or are animals that die naturally just scavenged so quicky that we never notice?
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### Author:  [@Giant\_Spongess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giant_Spongess)
#### Post date: [August 15, 2005, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-graveyards/317040/2 "2005-08-15T02:46:47Z")
As far as I know, very few animals die of old age. They just get slow enough for a predator to eat them.
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### Author:  [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)
#### Post date: [August 15, 2005, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-graveyards/317040/3 "2005-08-15T03:00:20Z")
Animals that are sick will often hide somewhere to protect themselves until they feel better. If they never get better, they die somewhere where you aren’t likely to see them.
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### Author:  [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)
#### Post date: [August 15, 2005, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-graveyards/317040/4 "2005-08-15T03:05:56Z")
I recently found a dead squirrel in my flowerbed. He was between a bush and the wall of my garage. Apparently dead of natural causes, it appeared he had looked for a concealed location.
Animals have no real sense of their own death. They just know they don’t feel good, or are injured, and want to go somewhere they feel safe to rest.
If an animal does not fall to predation due to being slow-moving, it likely dies in its burrow or hiding place. Each species has it’s own prefered hiding places-- animals that burrow likely retreat into their dens, and animals who use foliage as cover, conceal themselves quietly therein.
Most of the time, though, their corpses would not remain where they fall. Scavengers’ bellies are nature’s graveyard.
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### Author:  [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)
#### Post date: [August 15, 2005, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-graveyards/317040/5 "2005-08-15T12:03:46Z")
> [@Lissa](#):
>
> Scavengers’ bellies are nature’s graveyard.
This is way more poetic than how I would have put it! 😉
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [August 15, 2005, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-graveyards/317040/6 "2005-08-15T12:08:29Z")
> [@](#):
>
> I’ve read about elephant graveyards, certain areas where old elephants will actually go when they know they are dying.
“Elephant graveyards” always sounded like a non-urban myth to me. They’re a boon to scriptwriters – imagine! All the ivory in one place, ripe for the taking! How thoughtful of those elephants.
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### Author:  [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)
#### Post date: [August 15, 2005, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-graveyards/317040/7 "2005-08-15T13:13:50Z")
> [@Amazon Floozy Goddess](#):
>
> So the question is: do animals have “somewhere” that they go to die when it comes time? I’ve read about elephant graveyards, certain areas where old elephants will actually go when they know they are dying. Does this hold true for other animals as well? Or are animals that die naturally just scavenged so quicky that we never notice?
There are no elephant graveyards. AFAIK the idea originated with European explorers.
Except for hair and bones, animals are eaten extremely quickly. There are bacteria, flies, crows and a bunch of others that dispose of corpses. A mouse died inside one of the walls in my apartment. It stank. I decided not to call maintanence. It would have taken them a day or two to come, punch a hole in the wall, and extract the mouse. It would take three or four more days for them to return and patch the hole. It took only three days for bacteria (and presumably insects) to eat all of the mouse’s soft tissue and eliminate the odor.
It’s the cir-cle! The circle of-life!
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### Author:  [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)
#### Post date: [August 15, 2005, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-graveyards/317040/8 "2005-08-15T13:18:22Z")
> [@Amazon Floozy Goddess](#):
>
> … elephant graveyards, certain areas where old elephants will actually go when they know they are dying.
A myth. In the 1950s book _Hunter_, author John Hunter (a long-time safari guide in east Africa) states that the bones and especially the ivory of dead elephants are soon gnawed to dust by porcupines. The lack of “found” ivory led wishful thinkers to the notion of an elephant graveyard.
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### Author:  [@Amazon\_Floozy\_Goddess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amazon_Floozy_Goddess)
#### Post date: [August 15, 2005, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-graveyards/317040/9 "2005-08-15T18:50:59Z")
> [@Xema](#):
>
> A myth. In the 1950s book _Hunter_, author John Hunter (a long-time safari guide in east Africa) states that the bones and especially the ivory of dead elephants are soon gnawed to dust by porcupines. The lack of “found” ivory led wishful thinkers to the notion of an elephant graveyard.
Is it? I’m almost 100% sure I read an article in National Geographic about it - it was an older issue, from the early 80’s at least. The author of the article discussed areas where there were piles of elephant bones, and sometimes elephants would go there, pick up the bones and feel them, and pass them around to each other, almost like a kind of mourning. If I can find the issue, I’ll quote that part of the article.
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### Author:  [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)
#### Post date: [August 15, 2005, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-graveyards/317040/10 "2005-08-15T22:00:35Z")
Googling “Elephant graveyard” produces some interesting links, including one that says the myth may be partially true due to the tendency of elephants to head toward water when weak. Here’s a useful paragraph from [this site](http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/html/debate.html).
> [@](#):
>
> Elephants are essentially fragile; huge eating machines that require not only a great quantity of vegetation in a day, but also a wide selection of different plants including the bark of trees to provide the trace elements and minerals essential for such a large frame. They are delicate in infancy and by design have been equipped with a surprisingly inefficient digestive system, passing 6% protein in their dung. Once denied the essentials in their diet, they weaken rapidly, which forces them to retreat to sources of permanent water where conditions are inevitably worse. Before all others, they are the first to feel the affects of malnutrition, inducing a condition known as ketosis, which is a painless lethargy caused by lowered blood sugar levels, even when there is food in the stomach. What that food lacks, however, is the quantity and nutritional components needed to maintain strength. The elephants become comatose, spending a lot of time asleep, devoid of energy to move far from water. Inevitably, one day, they simply cannot get up and then the end comes quickly and quietly. They die surrounded by their loved ones who bring comfort and love right up until the end, and who then have time to mourn as they “bury” their dead, comforting each other in their bereavement. (It is this natural die-off that in the past gave rise to the legendary myth of “the elephants’ graveyard” when the bones of many elephants were found near sources of permanent water).
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### Author:  [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)
#### Post date: [August 15, 2005, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-graveyards/317040/11 "2005-08-15T22:38:57Z")
> [@Amazon Floozy Goddess](#):
>
> Is it? I’m almost 100% sure I read an article in National Geographic about it - it was an older issue, from the early 80’s at least. The author of the article discussed areas where there were piles of elephant bones, and sometimes elephants would go there, pick up the bones and feel them, and pass them around to each other, almost like a kind of mourning. If I can find the issue, I’ll quote that part of the article.
I saw this on TV some time ago. It was very depressing. According to the show, the elephants were able to distinguish between elephant bones and other mammal bones. They’d pick up a non-elephant bone and quickly put it down, but would caress and intently stare at an elephant bone.
I would love to be able to read their minds while they’re doing this.
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### Author:  [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2005, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-graveyards/317040/12 "2005-08-16T01:29:01Z")
Re Elephants And Elephant Bones
Last time I checked, it was accepted as scientific fact that elephants can recognize elephant bones and will spend large amounts of time handling them with their trunks. National Geographic has definitely shown footage of this.
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### Author:  [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2005, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-graveyards/317040/13 "2005-08-16T01:51:47Z")
I’ve heard that story too. I’m curious about something. Has anybody tried to figure out how the elephants can distinguish elephant bones?
AFAIK, humans who haven’t studied the appropriate subjects cannot tell whether a particular non-descript bone comes from a human or something else. If you handed me a large bone approximately the size and shape of a human femur, I doubt that I could confirm that it was or wasn’t one.
Can the elephants only do it with fresh bones, by smell, for instance? Does there have to be a reasonable amount of the elephant skeleton around, or can they recognize a random bone? I’d be very curious as to just what cue is involved here, and how long it is operative after an elephant has become a skeleton.
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### Author:  [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2005, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-graveyards/317040/14 "2005-08-16T03:04:21Z")
> [@Xema](#):
>
> states that the bones and especially the ivory of dead elephants are soon gnawed to dust by porcupines.
You mean those bastards that steal campers’ shoes?
Incidentally, if you’ve ever had a pet that was getting extremely old and decrepit, you’ve probably had your vet explain about animals dying through predation in the wild. Which he uses to segue into how that’s not going to happen to your pet, and good thing, because it’s painful and terrifying, and it’s time to start thinking about how exactly ol’ Boso ought to die sometime before his life is nothing but suffering, etc. etc.
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### Author:  [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2005, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-graveyards/317040/15 "2005-08-16T09:46:35Z")
> [@saoirse](#):
>
> You mean those bastards that steal campers’ shoes?
>
> Incidentally, if you’ve ever had a pet that was getting extremely old and decrepit, you’ve probably had your vet explain about animals dying through predation in the wild. Which he uses to segue into how that’s not going to happen to your pet, and good thing, because it’s painful and terrifying, and it’s time to start thinking about how exactly ol’ Boso ought to die sometime before his life is nothing but suffering, etc. etc.
I find that rather unlikely. Not the speech, but the idea that Boso (Boso? Who named your pets?) would have succumbed to predation. Most of our pets (dogs and cats) are top-level predators. They’d undoubtedly be eaten by scavengers after death, but are wolves and wildcats ever commonly victim to predation?
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### Author:  [@Corrvin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corrvin)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2005, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-graveyards/317040/16 "2005-08-16T14:01:16Z")
> [@Alan Smithee](#):
>
> I find that rather unlikely. Not the speech, but the idea that Boso (Boso? Who named your pets?) would have succumbed to predation. Most of our pets (dogs and cats) are top-level predators. They’d undoubtedly be eaten by scavengers after death, but are wolves and wildcats ever commonly victim to predation?
I shall have to explain this to my parents’ cats, so that if they are ever feeling slow and decrepit, and they are accosted by a coyote, they can simply explain that they are a top-level predator, and walk away.
Along with that answer, hawks and other raptors may attack with intent to dine (whether or not the bird wins depends on the size and health of its prey). [The Carolina Raptor Center](http://www.carolinaraptorcenter.org/qa.php#q23) talks here about raptors attacking pets; [the post on 8/6/03](http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/archive/index.php?t-3004.html) cites an incident where a Harris hawk attacked a Chihuahua in a NYC park. (The hawk was brought in as part of a program to scare away pigeons.)
Corrvin
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### Author:  [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2005, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-graveyards/317040/17 "2005-08-16T14:22:16Z")
Well, yes. I am aware that dogs and cats are sometimes eaten by coyotes and such, or even carried off by raptors. (Though I was never quite sure till now whether the latter actually happened or was urban legend.) And every couple years you’ll read a story in the paper about someone’s pet boa constrictor who got loose and ate a poodle or two.
But the hypothetical vet was talking about what happens to animals _in the wild_, which I took to mean _wild animals_. (IOW, “This is what would happen to Boso if he weren’t domsticated”, not “This is what would happen to Boso if you dropped him off in the woods and left him there.”) Truely wild dogs (i.e. wolves) and wild (not feral) cats, even smaller ones, are top-level preditors, AFAIK. Nevertheless, my question was a genuine one, inasmuch as I may be wrong. (But I’d be surprised if I am.)
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### Author:  [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)
#### Post date: [August 16, 2005, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-graveyards/317040/18 "2005-08-16T16:06:49Z")
A wolf might not be victim to another predator, other than a black bear, but smaller predators would be. I dpn’t know what a wild (as opposed to feral) dog or cat would do in the wild, since it’s difficult to determine how they lived before domestication. I have read that. allowed to interbreed freely, populations of dogs tend towards a 19" floppy-eared black and tan model.
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### Author:  [@Can\_Handle\_the\_Truth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Can_Handle_the_Truth)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2005, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-graveyards/317040/19 "2005-08-17T01:43:16Z")
I think that many old male animals (especially predators) are killed by younger males of the same species in disputes over territory and females. I know that’s how most old male lions die (no cite).
I’ve heard many stories where injured or sick wolves are attacked and eaten by their own pack. Don’t know if it’s actually true.
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### Author:  [@RyJae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RyJae)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2005, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/animal-graveyards/317040/20 "2005-08-17T02:53:55Z")
> [@Can Handle the Truth](#):
>
> I think that many old male animals (especially predators) are killed by younger males of the same species in disputes over territory and females. I know that’s how most old male lions die (no cite).
>
> I’ve heard many stories where injured or sick wolves are attacked and eaten by their own pack. Don’t know if it’s actually true.
I think you may be mistaken about the lions, not sure about wolves I do remember hearing the number one cause of death for wolves in some park in Alaska was wolves.
I thought starvation played a bigger part in an aging lions death just from watching the nature channels. But I did find this.
> [@](#):
>
> Fights to the death occur occasionally, and many a male in his prime has fallen acquiring or defending a pride. Surviving losers often become nomads, and have to fend for themselves. They tend to lose weight, and scavenge more than they hunt as they grow older. However, it is not unknown for another lion to share their food with one of these old nomads. It is interesting to note that females outnumber males by a substantial margin in wild lion populations, even though the birth ratio is about 50 percent male/female. This is probably due to the tendency of males to be nomads, take on more dangerous game, and be killed in pride takeover attempts. Elderly males are often killed by other predators.
[Link](http://www.lionlmb.org/lion/lionfact.html)
So it may not be totally false, but I don’t think lions killing lion is “how most old male lions die” But I would be very interested if someone would come along with more information on that.
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