 | New research has demonstrated sentience (the ability to experience sensations and emotions) in a wide variety of animals, including insects, fish, birds, and mammals. For example, according to Dr. Stanley Coren, dogs have all of the same brain structures, hormones, and neurotransmitters that produce emotions in humans. “With the same neurology and chemistry that people have, it seems reasonable to suggest that dogs also have emotions that are similar to ours.” |
Dogs do have most of the same emotions as humans: “joy, fear, anger, disgust, and even love. However, based on current research it seems likely that your dog will not have those more complex emotions like guilt, pride, and shame."
 | Dr. Coren says, “Many people might argue that they have seen evidence that indicates their dog is capable of experiencing guilt. The usual situation is when you come home and your dog starts slinking around and showing discomfort, and you then find that he or she has left a smelly brown deposit on your kitchen floor. . . . However this is not guilt, but simply the more basic emotion of fear. The dog has learned that when you appear and his droppings are visible on the floor, bad things happen to him. What you see is his fear of punishment; he will never feel guilt.” |
Per Purina, cats also express basic emotions; “they feel happy, sad, afraid, relieved, and even frustrated, just like us.” Cats convey emotion through body language.
For example, pupils will be dilated in an anxious cat, and their ears will either be perked up or flattened back if they’re really upset. They may cower and the tip of their tail may swish back and forth.
For example, pupils will be dilated in an anxious cat, and their ears will either be perked up or flattened back if they’re really upset. They may cower and the tip of their tail may swish back and forth.
 | The classic Halloween cat displays typical angry behavior: “rigid, with [their] tail held out stiff and straight or curled around and under their body. They [can] be silent, hissing, spitting or growling. They will try to look large and threatening, with fur erect, stiff front legs. . . . Their ears will be tense, and flat back against their head, and whiskers will be stiff away from their face. Their eyes will be hard and focused.” Fearful cats behave similarly, with ears flat, eyes dilated, and they may hiss or growl at close threats. |
The article says, “An actively frustrated cat usually focuses intently on their object of frustration, and will try everything they can do to get what they want! . . . They may pace impatiently if they can’t get to what they want.” Or in the case of our cat, Tiny Tim, meow loudly and piteously.
 Tristan sprawling | After an upsetting experience, cats express relief by stretching, yawning, and “having a good wash.” Happy cats are easy to spot. Their ears and whiskers are relaxed, and their tails are still. When cats are happy they may sit with their legs tucked under them (life a bread loaf) or sprawled on their backs (Tristan often demonstrates the Sprawl). They will also purr gently when petted. |
Fish also “have a conscious awareness — or "sentience" — that allows them to experience pain, recognize individual humans and have memory,” says Dr. Jonathan Balcombe, author of What a Fish Knows.
In one experiment, zebra fishes purposefully migrated into a tank with pain relievers after being exposed to caustic acid. Other studies show that fish recognize individual divers. “They come up to be stroked. It is almost like a dog.”
In one experiment, zebra fishes purposefully migrated into a tank with pain relievers after being exposed to caustic acid. Other studies show that fish recognize individual divers. “They come up to be stroked. It is almost like a dog.”
 | Fish also communicate, albeit in unusual ways. Schools of herrings, for example, use "flatulent communication" . . . "They live in big schools and they omit gases from the anus in large numbers, and it makes a sound. And they appear to use this as a communication device to maybe signal to others that it's time we moved up or down in the water column, because it's that time of day when the predators are coming out and this sort of thing.” |
Bees and some other insects have demonstrated sentience in scientific experiments according to Professor Lars Chittka. “Bees, for example, can count, grasp concepts of sameness and difference, learn complex tasks by observing others, and know their own individual body dimensions, a capacity associated with consciousness in humans. They also appear to experience both pleasure and pain.”
 | In one experiment, the bees were given balls to play with. “Bees went out of their way to return again and again to a “play area” where they rolled the mobile balls in all directions and often for extended periods without a sugar reward, even though plenty of food was provided nearby.” He notes that cockroaches and fruit flies are also known to experience pain; some species of wasps recognize their nest mates' faces and acquire impressive social skills, such as assessing the strength of other wasps. |
Zaria Gorvett of the BBC cites “mounting evidence that insects can experience a remarkable range of feelings. They can be literally buzzing with delight at pleasant surprises, or sink into depression when bad things happen that are out of their control. They can be optimistic, cynical, or frightened, and respond to pain just like any mammal would.”
 | Research has found that fruit flies pay attention to their peers and are able to learn from them. Their “brains use dopamine just like ours do, to elicit feelings of reward and punishment.” Also, “injured fruit flies can experience lingering pain, long after their physical wounds have healed. . . . almost like an anxiety-like state, where once they've been injured, they want to make sure nothing else bad happens . . .” And although their brains are the size of a poppy seed, they’re structured similarly to human brains in terms of nerve receptors and neurotransmitters. |
When bees are attacked by wasps they scream, using “an amplified, frantic version of their usual buzz. And though no one has conclusively tied the shrieks to an emotional response in the bees,” these shrieks are similar to “the alarm calls of many other animals, from primates to birds [which] might suggest that they're fearful.”
Further, just like humans, rats, sheep, dogs, cows, cod, and starlings, experiments demonstrate that bees who have been traumatized tend to be pessimistic and expect the worst.
Further, just like humans, rats, sheep, dogs, cows, cod, and starlings, experiments demonstrate that bees who have been traumatized tend to be pessimistic and expect the worst.
According to Rescue the Birds, bird’s brains are structured similarly to our own and other mammals. “They have a limbic system, a specialized portion of the brain necessary for true emotional behavior.”
Author Annie Krug notes, “the most obvious example of birds showing affection is their courtship and mating behaviors. Mated birds preen each other, share food, and protect each other from predators and threats as a sign of their bond.”
 | Like other animals, birds like to play. Sea birds ride the waves and a crow was filmed using a plastic lid to sled down a roof in Russia. Birds also express fear by flying away from danger, chirping distress calls or screaming, and flapping their wings. Angry birds “flash their colorful wings or tail feathers as a warning. . . . Fluffing feathers and spreading wings and tailfeathers, are also signs that a bird is ready for war.” |
Angry birds may also dive-bomb perceived threats. When the fruit on my mulberry tree ripened, a territorial blue jay used to terrorize our cat Jack to keep him away. Similarly, crows are known to attack specific people they remember as threatening, as do magpies.
 | According to Krug, birds also display mourning behavior similar to our own: “their posture droops, they appear listless, and often cry real tears. Certain birds—jay birds, pigeons, and ospreys—will remain near where their baby died for long periods of time. Others—magpies and crows—hold “funerals” for their dead, walking in circles together around the fallen bird for several minutes.” “One of the most pronounced expressions of bird grief comes from Barn Owls, known to stick with their mates for life. When one mate dies, the remaining owl will often starve itself to death, causing some to wonder if it dies of a broken heart.” |
In How Animals Grieve, scientist Barbara J. King affirms animal sentience through the lens of grief. Elephants, for example, “remember events vividly, to the point that they may suffer with post-traumatic stress disorder, as when their sleep is disrupted by nightmares after witnessing the killing of relatives or friends by ivory poachers.”
 | As Zoe Cormier of the BBC notes: “Elephants are famed for visiting the remains of dead family members, stroking their bones or at times rocking back and forth in what resembles a ‘vigil.” Other examples of animal mourning include “twenty-seven adult giraffes holding a vigil for one dead baby giraffe, elephants from five different families visiting the bones of one of the dead, a group of fifteen dolphins slowing their speed to escort a mother dolphin carrying her dead calf, and [two ducks] who formed a friendship at their sanctuary home. When one duck died, the other lay with its head on the other's neck for hours.” |
Cormier documents additional mourning rituals, such as a mother orca tending her dead calf for almost three weeks and a chimpanzee cleaning the teeth of her dead son, and suggests these behaviors might help the mothers come to terms with their loss.
An article published by the James L. Voss Veterinary Teaching Hospital says “Research in evolutionary biology, cognitive biology and social neuroscience supports the view that many diverse animals have rich and deep emotional lives” including grief.
“The surviving animals may change their sleeping habits [and] much like humans, animals may become despondent.” They may search for the deceased and become clingy or isolate from others. Sleep habit changes may include sleeping where the deceased member used to sleep and sleeping more often.
“The surviving animals may change their sleeping habits [and] much like humans, animals may become despondent.” They may search for the deceased and become clingy or isolate from others. Sleep habit changes may include sleeping where the deceased member used to sleep and sleeping more often.
 | Grief research shows that cats “alter their behavior when they mourn, much like people do. They may become depressed and listless. They may have a decreased appetite and decline to play. They may sleep more than usual and move more slowly, sulking around. They may hide under the bed, choosing to be alone even more than usual for cats.” They may also become clingy, demanding more attention from their humans. |
Even plants share this expression of pain and grief according to Dr. Lonny D. Meinecke: “Trees form attachments with other trees much like social animals do. Chop down a tree’s companion tree and the surviving tree will probably die too—very much like when someone as old as me loses his lifelong partner.”
 | We now know that trees scream when an animal eats their leaves or humans prune their limbs. Scientists discovered that “plants cry out the same way animals do when they are in pain. We just couldn’t hear them before, because we can’t hear the high-frequency sounds they make in response to their suffering.” “Plants now join mammals, ants, bees, and social fish in the ever-growing number of living things that can feel anguish, express pain, and warn their own kind of imminent extinction — even if they realize they can’t save themselves.” |
Dr. Meinecke notes that regarding other sentient creatures as objects for material exploitation dehumanizes them —and dehumanizes us. “But if we listen closely, we can hear a host of tiny voices all around us—it’s our chance to learn how to treat each other well by learning to treat all things, great and small, well.”
For more on plant sentience, read The Hidden Life of Trees and Serving Plants
For more on animal sentience, read If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal and Sounds Wild and Broken
For more on animal sentience, read If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal and Sounds Wild and Broken
RSS Feed