Do animals have the concept of death and mortality?

One thing which may or may not have previously been mentioned. That is, the different sensing abilities of various animals. For example it has been said that sometimes pets such as dogs and cats may react with either affection or aversion towards something unseen, a bit like a related phenomenon of humans approaching their own death seeing or having conversations with unseen (to anyone else) visitors (and perhaps occasionally some less welcome and frightening visitation). I've long considered that even ordinary human-to-human communication, such as a face-to-face conversation, takes place in parallel with a telepathic sharing of thoughts or emotions. When people say of their dog or other animal, "he/she understands every word I say", perhaps that is true, not due to a grasp by the animal of English grammar and sentence construction, but due to an associated telepathic link.

In the case of animals, I'm thinking perhaps of elephants but not limited to just those, when they gather in groups, we cannot tell what sort of mind-to-mind contact is going on. And in the case of the death of one of the group, there may sometimes/often/rarely be communication with the deceased. What we do know is many animals grieve and suffer after the loss of a fellow.

Even humans do sometimes behave oddly, such as retaining the corpse of the deceased for decades, perhaps in order to continue to claim a pension on their behalf, or other unconventional reasons. But we don't see this as meaning humans don't recognise death.

That is, the different sensing abilities of various animals.

What about the different abilities of individual animals within a group? Are we limiting the possibilities by assuming certain things? 

Take dogs for example. Similar to Humans, dogs each have their individual personalities, with some being thought of as ‘bright’, and some a bit ‘dim’. The parallels of dogs personalities with equivalent humans are rather noticeable. They say that dogs often behave like their owners, I think there’s some truth in this. My uncle is one of those people who’s dog “understands every word I say”. I consider certain humans as being more advanced than others, I also acknowledge that this might only be my perception of things. I am open to the possibility of there being much more to us than what we see or ‘have to go on’ - the same might be true of dogs. 

I personally think that some animals certainly do have a ‘sense’ of mortality, as has already been mentioned, elephants are the obvious one, but birds too, seem to show certain sacred value to one of their kind passing. One example that comes to mind is a photo of some birds like storks (?)walking in a circle in a road around a dead comrade. Of course it may have been something totally different, like them all behaving like they were gunfighters in a stand off in a spaghetti western! But some people seeing their solemn dance in person or even a photo of that event will know that there was something related to death in the birds behaviour. 

Some do, some don’t - or maybe like humans - appear not to.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/anima...ure-brains

What about the different abilities of individual animals within a group? Are we limiting the possibilities by assuming certain things? 

Good post (not read the linked page yet).

I wasn't intending to limit anything. In one sentence I used "sometimes/often/rarely" and that applies to much of what I write. I have ideas, but not certainties. And sometimes my ideas are just playful rather than realistic, but I think it's necessary to do so, allow a bit of leeway for just playing with ideas.

And sometimes my ideas are just playful rather than realistic, but I think it's necessary to do so, allow a bit of leeway for just playing with ideas.

I couldn’t agree more Typoz.