Is there any evidence to suggest that some animal species do not murder (a targeted attack leading to death) members of their own species? If so, which are the relevant species?
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1I think it might help to give a little bit more context - is this purely idle curiosity (in which case the answers will be all over the place) or do you have some particular goal ... ? – Ben Bolker Aug 26 '16 at 23:48
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I asked this question from a general interest, as a view on murder (and the lack of it) from an ethological perspective. – O0123 Aug 26 '16 at 23:53
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Here are a few suggestions:
- Any coral
- Any sponge
- Blue mussels
- Sheep
- Dugong
- brown-headed cowbird
- Blue whale
- Common earwigs
- Plasmodium falciparum (causing malaria)
If by the use of the term "evidence", you are expecting a peer-review paper that discuss the matter, I am afraid you wont find any as it is not really a question of interest to researchers. If you can prove wrong any of the above suggestions I will be happy to remove it (and eventually add some others).
Remi.b
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Thank you very much for your answer. Would you think it would be possible to create some kind of a preliminary classification, as to categorize species into particular reasons which may cause the inability to, or non-occurence of, killing their own? – O0123 Aug 26 '16 at 18:27
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I suppose you would based the distinction based on whether a behavioural change might change the ability to kill an individual from the same species. You might quickly get into semantic issues esp. with species that have no brain. Also you would quickly run into the issue of guess work as you can't test the ability of a blue whale to kill another one because you cannot play out with blue whale behaviour as you want (and that would be way too expensive anyway). – Remi.b Aug 26 '16 at 18:31
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1As your follow-up question is a guesswork type of question, you might have better luck on WorldBuilding.SE but I am not quite sure what their rules are. – Remi.b Aug 26 '16 at 18:32
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Did you mean the plasmodium parasite when you meant malaria? – randominstanceOfLivingThing Aug 26 '16 at 18:59
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Yes, that's what I meant. I edited to Plasmodium falciparum. I was looking for something deadly which does not kill members of its own species. There might be more obvious ("more true") examples. – Remi.b Aug 26 '16 at 19:04
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@Remi.b Pandas do exhibit aggressively dangerous behaviour, therefore it's likely that some pandas have killed eachother. Cf. e.g. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-pandas/2015/08/28/d4a96b1c-4bfe-11e5-bfb9-9736d04fc8e4_story.html: Indeed, they do harm one another, particularly when males are establishing dominance or competing for females. Males in China’s Qinling Mountains are often observed with torn ears and bite wounds from tussling with other males. And in 2007, the first captive-born male reintroduced into the wild died after an apparent fight with other pandas. – O0123 Aug 26 '16 at 19:25
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@Remi.b I assume that the same counts for sheep? I am not inclined to think that, even regarding domesticated sheeps, the features which would normally account for dangerous damage during aggression have been bred out by domestication? – O0123 Aug 26 '16 at 19:28
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@Remi.b Regarding the questions surrounding "semantic issues" which you raise, I assume it's best to define killing as murdering due to a targeted attack. I have adapted my question accordingly. – O0123 Aug 26 '16 at 19:31
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@Remi.b The brown-headed cowbird is also known to be aggressive and kill other birds (cf. e.g. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1188&context=usgsnpwrc). Why can we be sure that this doesn't sometimes happen to members of its own species? – O0123 Aug 27 '16 at 01:49
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It is a fundamental concept of the philosophy of knowledge, you can't ever be sure that something is not happening. I just know there are not territorial and I don't think they fight for access to mate. – Remi.b Aug 27 '16 at 12:35