Do any animals apart from humans commit suicide?

Answer 1

It is a myth that Lemmings commit suicide. It started during the filming of the 1958 Disney nature documentary White Wilderness, the film crew induced lemmings into jumping off a cliff and into the sea in order to document their supposedly suicidal behavior. See http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/lemmings.htm
[Thanks Mr. Disney - true to reality as usual]

Animals don't really have the ability to commit suicide - their instinct is generally survival at any costs. There are a few instances of deliberate "self harm":-
*Male spiders show by their nervousness when approaching the female that they realise that they are likely to end up getting eaten, yet carry on anyway.
*Many wounded animals will bite at their wounds - whether this is to clear away infection, because the wound irritates in some way or because the animal realises it's time is up and wants to hasten its end is unclear
*Other injured or elderly animals simply "give up". They stop eating and drinking and some (eg. elephants) take themselves away from the rest of their group to die. This is, in effect, suicide by starvation/dehydration although it is obviously not entirely clear what motivates such behaviour as no animal has ever left a suicide note to explain!

Answer 2

No Animals Commit Suicide
Lemmings Don't Either

Answer 3

yes I believe they do. two stories for you.
sad one first. For anyone who remembers a series called flipper about a dolphin that dolphin commited suicide. When the series ended in the 70's flipper was moved to a sealife aquarium where fans could see him, only after a few weeks he stopped eating and one day never came back up for air. Depression killed him as he was really no longer a big thing to the publice
happy ending now.
My 6 year old dog (still with me now) had to be looked after by someone else for 3 months. Alot happened and we were in a place where he could not stay with us. So our mother in law was watching him, feeding him every day fresh water, fuss, walks you know the norm. well Major stopped eating. flat out refused even when she offered people food. We visited him every day but he still wouldn't eat. He did this for about 5 weeks before we could get him back. The day we got him home he went on a small but often diet and ate like he never saw food before. I think that he would have just waisted away had he not come home. But he is fit, healthy and happy now.

Answer 4

Dogs sometimes commit suicide.

In the pack mentality there is always an alpha male and an alpha female. As the alpha gets old and loses strength a younger dog will challenge them. Often one of these animals is killed in the fight. However, sometimes there is no challenger. In these cases, the alpha will go off by itself and eat something poisonous. This is done for the good of the pack to encourage a strong dog to take the alpha role.

Answer 5

there are a number of species where the male dies after mating, so I guess you could call that suicide, praying mantas for one.

Also some animals die after protective measures, a bee dies after it stings you.

Depends what you class as suicide, whether you mean does any animal think Oh I cant go on anymore and kills itself, or whether it knowingly does something ending in death. The question would then be, does the animal know it will die?

Answer 6

My Grandpa's dog did. Barney was a yellow saint bernard husky cross who was about four years old and about the size of a pony, he loved my grandpa and was his shadow. My grandpa died very quickly from cancer within a week of it being diagnosed and couldn't say goodbye to Barney. About two weeks after grandpa died, Barney was wandering around looking for him and wimpering every day so my parents let him outside (Barney knew not to go off the property) not five mintutes later we heard a loud crash and ran out , Barney had walked in front of a transport truck and died instantly, the truck driver said that he saw Barney on the side of the road and he suddenly walked out in front of the truck. Barney left a very large dent in the truck's grill. Everyone believes that he missed my grandpa so much that he couldn't bear life anymore and commited suicide because he wasn't the type to run into traffic. Poor puppy.

Answer 7

Lemmings don't commit suicide, they simply get bowled over the edge of the cliff by the lemmings in the back of the herd...flock, or whatever it's called.

Answer 8

Lemmings

Answer 9

Nope. And lemmings don't commit suicide; they don't willfully end their lives, they just fall of off cliffs.

Answer 10

I had a hamster commit suicide after his friend (my other hamster) died. He just hung from the top bars of his cage...didn't eat or sleep...every time I would take him down...he would climb back up...he just gave up on living...he stayed there until he died.