From Does any animal besides human commit suicide?:
…there are many social insects with sterile, suicidal soldiers or workers–for example, termite soldiers that explode their bodies, which are filled with sticky guts, immobilizing their enemies in goo.
–SDSTAFF Doug
Would you happen to have film, or directions to film, of exploding termites? That I gotta see.
Edited to add link to Staff Report being discussed. --CKDH
[Edited by C K Dexter Haven on 02-02-2001 at 06:56 AM]
The staff report in question seems to be saying that whales beach themselves to escape their suffering when sick.
How do we know that this is their intention?
AFAIK, no suicide notes have been found floating around (“I can’t go on any longer. Love to Monstro. Signed, Shamu”), and nobody has deciphered a whale song in THAT kind of detail, so what is the basis of this assertion?
Regards,
Shodan
I think I would have been more interested in seeing “Antz” and “A Bug’s Life” if the script included exploding termite attacks.
“The staff report in question seems to be saying that whales beach themselves to escape their suffering when sick.”
It’s not necessarily a matter of escaping their suffering - all we know is that most whale beachings involve largely or mostly dying or diseased animals. Sometimes it’s parasites, sometimes it’s poisoning, sometimes it’s starvation, but it doesn’t look like healthy whales beach except as a follow-the-leader sort of thing. It’s not exactly the easiest thing to figure out, you must admit.
As for movies of exploding termites, I doubt that any have been made - it’s not like it splatters or anything, so it’s not very dramatic. They grab an enemy and then burst their bellies, gluing themselves and the enemy in place.
Ok this is totally anecdotal but…
My brother once ran over a Canadian Goose. He saw the goose up ahead on the road. It was looking down at another goose, which was dead. As my brother got closer the live goose spread it wings and walked out right in front him. My brother could swerve out of the way due to oncoming traffic. He said the goose looked like maybe he was attacking the car.
I believe these mate for life so maybe the goose was bummed and killed itself or maybe he thought he stood a chance against a Mazda going 70 mph.
Humans aren’t the only animals that have undergone documented suicide. Dolphins have been seen to suicide under adverse training conditions. I’m referring to a publication by Karen Pryor and Kenneth Norris (Dolphin Socities: Discoveries and Puzzles, 1991) in which an articles states that dolphins are trained exclusively by positive reinforcement, as they do not respond to negative reinforcement. Basically, you reward them for doing what you want, rather than punish them for doing something else. In this article, it is mentioned that under extremely adverse conditions (poor sanitation, too small of a swimming area, little socialization or stimulation, etc.), dolphins have been known to sink to the bottom of their pools and refuse to come to the surface to breathe. Unlike in most other mammals, breathing is not an involuntary response in dolphins–it requires conscious activity, which is one of the reasons that anesthesia is so dangerous to them. As such, when the dolphin passes out due to a lack of oxygen to the brain, breathing doesn’t kick in the way it does when a toddler holds his or her breath until turning blue. The dolphin, unless revived, will die. And I think that sinking to the bottom of a pool and refusing to breathe obviously qualifies as an action in which immediate death is forseeable.
Without knowing all of the details, I wonder if the goose was trying to flag your brother to stop his car, prehaps to prevent further damage to its mate. I’ve seen humans jump into traffic to stop cars. But my falacy here is assuming geese, or any non-primate, think like humans. I won’t argue whether or not they have emotions, but their patterns of thought may be misinterpeted by us.
For an extreme example, take the beached whales. Whale No. 1, refusing to stop and ask for directions, makes a wrong turn and gets stuck on the shore. He calls out to Whale No. 2.
“Moby! Come pull me offa this here beach!”
“Sure thing, Dick. (Whale No. 2 beaches) Damn! I ain’t got legs! Nemo! Come pull us offa this here beach!”
Whale No. 3: "Sure thing Moby. (Whale No. 3 beaches) Damn! I ain’t got legs! Hey, Grape! Come pull…(ad infinitum).
Back to the termites. (Admission of geekiness follows.)When I got home, I checked my X-Files episode guide for episode 20, “Darkness Falls”, but they were just prehistoric green cocoon-weaving mites. Non-explosive. Oh well. My first post fizzles to a stop. I probably make a better lurker.
[[As for movies of exploding termites, I doubt that any have been made - it’s not like it splatters or anything, so it’s not very dramatic. They grab an enemy and then burst their bellies, gluing themselves and the enemy in place.]] Doug
We all want to see this. But Doug continues to titillate us with teases like this, and doesn’t produce. I think he does it to pick up girls. - Jill
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen those exploding termites on one of those PBS nature shows. Sorry I can’t remember which.
As for humans being the only animal that commits suicide, for some reason I was reminded of the Mark Twain quote:
“Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.”
I think this would make a great power for a new Spider-Man villian to have!
(Great column, Doug!)
Fenris
As far as ‘foreseeable death’ qualifying as suicide, same objection applies. How do we know what the animal foresees?
Even if all the whales beaching are sick, the concept of them committing suicide implies that whales understand what death is, decide that it is preferable to living in pain, and plan on an action that will lead to death.
If we cannot communicate with whales, we cannot tell if they can or do think so abstractly.
Regards,
Shodan
“Other than humans, do otherwise healthy and reproductively-capable individuals of any other species perform actions foreseeably guaranteed to result in their immediate death?”
Rats in Skinner-boxes which are fed randomized negative stimuli have a tendency to sit in a corner and refuse food. Because it mirrors human depressive disorders so astoundingly, it contributes to the theory that a feeling of hopelessness, or a lack of control over one’s environment, is a key factor in depressed suicides. (There may be a crossover with the dolphin factor, here.)
[Note, these are healthy rats (other than the suicidal/depressed bit). Note also, that they commit suicide with as much immediacy as manageable, given their unique condition. Note lastly, it’s not that the rats simply commit suicide, but that the rats are being used to MODEL human suicide.]
At least we’re still the only known species that can CAUSE suicide. Go humans!
About the exploding termites - I asked an entomologist about this (thomas, from the last post, if that’s you, speak out!). Anyway, he described some genera of soldier termites that do spray sticky stuff on invaders, but do not “explode”. He refered to the exploding termite story as “fokelore”.
"I asked an entomologist about this (thomas, from the last post, if that’s you, speak out!). Anyway, he described some genera of soldier termites that do spray sticky stuff on invaders, but do not “explode”. He refered to the exploding termite story as “fokelore”.
He doesn’t know enough about termites, then - and my specialty is social insects. He’s thinking about Nasutitermes and other related genera that have blind, nozzle-headed soldiers. There ARE genera whose soldiers simply grab onto an enemy and burst themselves. Trust me on that.
As for artificially-stressed rats and dolphins giving up on living, we’re no longer talking about natural behaviors any more, are we? Should I add another clause to the original one, stating “…in nature…” so we can exclude abusive people driving animals to kill themselves??
Interesting topic. I work for a wildlife park. The wildlife director tells me that chimpanzees (which, incidentally, share 98% identical genetic make up with humans) have been known not only to deceive, steal, rape and murder, but also to commit suicide. “How?” asked I. “By drowning themselves,” was his reply. Chimps cannot swim and they know it.
I’ve also watched a tick fill itself with so much of my huge dog’s blood that it exploded. But maybe that’s not suicide - maybe that’s simple gluttony.
Oh, of course - now I’m convinced.
Well, if you don’t believe SDSTAFF Doug who if not an entomologist is at least some kind of bug-researcher at UC Riverside, perhaps you’ll believe this Doug who has absolutely no training in entomology but who is armed with a wonderful invention called a search engine.
From Colorado State’s Entomology pages
Enough cites for you, Kelly?
“Enough cites for you, Kelly”
Well, yeah, I guess one is better than none.
Trust me, I’m losing no sleep over this, and all I know about termites is that I don’t want 'em eating my house, and I pay sombody to prevent that.
I’m just a guy trying to decide which of two experts has the Straight Dope on this. Thanks for the cite.
Sorry I wasn’t clearer - I was referring to the cites-within-the-cite, adding up to a whopping two cites. (not including the linked-to article, since it is not ‘primary’.)
Specifically:
It has the word Suicidal right in the title. Cool.
I do see your point - when competing claims both come from ‘experts’ it is hard to know whom to believe. Trust no one. 
Doug says in his article:
" As a final note, the stuff about lemmings jumping off cliffs, of course, is a myth."
So whats the deal with that Disney film that
-SHOWS- shitloads of little lemmings, who have no more food
or something, all running like a river, untill
BANZI! they all start pouring over a cliff!
Now, I realize that this must have been created in the studio but just like on “Mutual of Omaha´s Wild Kingdom”
there is a disclamer saying something like “this stuff
you see here - wheather actual or created - depicts
authenticated facts” now, if it wasnt a “fact” how
could Walt alow generations of school kids watch this
stuff on a public school buget and keep a straight face?