How useful is it for animals to ＂play dead＂？ They will die for you in minutes.

Original SME SME technology story

Teenager, are you eager for strength? Want to be a hypnotist? Now all you need is a chicken, and hypnosis can be done quickly.

First, hold the chicken tightly so that its head is down and its beak is on the ground, and then draw a trace on the ground with chalk or fingers. Wait until the chicken is quiet and then let go of your hand, and you will get a new "stupefied chicken"

A "hypnotized" chicken

Of course, this is not true hypnosis, it uses the fear instinct of animals in the face of threats. Your fierce operation made it mistakenly think that a predator was close at hand, so it fell into a state of suspended animation (Thanatosis).

Hamiton Bertie Gibson, a British psychologist, mentioned in his book that the ultimate record of the longest time a chicken was hypnotized was 3 hours and 47 minutes.

In 1646, the German scholar Athanasius Kircher observed a chicken that went into suspended animation because of fear.

There are many animals that play dead in nature, and it also has a proper term called "tonic immobility".

This is a defensive strategy, which widely exists in mammals, birds, reptiles, fish and insects, and the "death method" is even more varied.

The 5-year-old girl in the CCTV program "Challenge Impossible" has "hypnotized" (scared) dogs, lizards, chickens, frogs and spiders, and was madly spit out.

It is precisely because suspended animation is so common that a number of so-called animal "hypnotists" have been made. They made a simple animal instinct magical and full of mystery.

There is a big brother who started a chicken farm, and even sold the local chicken at twice the price of the local market by the marketing method of "hypnotizing chicken". And those who buy chickens are really uneducated.

When confronted with a potential threat, two signals will immediately appear in an animal’s mind-"fight" or "flight", also called Fight-or-flight response. This is like the degree to which the brain has written, and you will choose between them, so that the body will respond quickly to better protect itself.

But in fact, in the case of "fighting" but not "escaping", our bodies can still fall into the third state-freeze.

Fight, flight and freeze displayed by Lego villains

When being touched at close range or feeling attacked, the rigidity of the prey may be triggered. But this state is not a decision made after careful consideration, but an involuntary defense mechanism.

They are really stiff and unable to move as if they had been acupoints. However, his brain is still spinning rapidly, and he is also alert to the changes in the surrounding environment.

On the surface, this rabbit enjoys the shower, but in fact, it has entered a state of suspended animation because of fear. Rabbits are prone to stress reactions and blind bathing is not recommended.

In fact, in the face of great pressure and threats, human beings will also have similar tonic static reactions. Have you ever tried, because you are too nervous, standing on the podium with your head blank and you can’t say a word?

In addition, when human beings are infringed, they often have temporary paralysis. Some researchers have talked with 300 women who have been sexually assaulted and found that 70% of them experienced obvious rigidity and stillness when they were attacked. They will be paralyzed, unable to scream, unable to resist, and their bodies will be completely out of control. Similarly, soldiers who have been on the battlefield have also had similar experiences.

It’s just that there are many mysteries about animal suspended animation. Because the matter of animals pretending to be dead is quite strange and full of doubts.

An animal faking its death is like taking its own life as a gamble. The success or failure of this gamble depends entirely on the foraging mode of hunters.

Fake dead frog

First of all, it is difficult to know whether the hunter will lose interest in the dead individual by pretending to be dead. If suspended animation can’t make hunters lose interest, then the poor guy who wants to get away with it by suspended animation will miss the best chance to escape. On the contrary, it makes the hunting work easier for hunters, and if they are not careful, they will directly change from "suspended animation" to "real death".

Moreover, the state of suspended animation can not reduce the sensory ability of predators to locate or identify prey, and it can not enhance the resistance of prey when attacked. Many times, this kind of rigidity and stillness will remain for a while, and the risk of being eaten seems to be even greater.

Fake dead bird

However, judging from the results of evolution, the strategy of feigning death is still useful with a high probability, and the overall advantages outweigh the disadvantages. If some predators delay eating, are not interested in dead things, and even find it difficult to distinguish still things, then the prey may escape.

In fact, obedience can really hurt yourself less. The state of rigidity and stillness can inhibit the further attack of predators and reduce the action of hunters to subdue their prey.

For another example, many top hunters will be more interested in the prey that is fleeing around, such as your cat, and the favorite is the cat-teasing stick full of soul. If the cat comes after a group of mice, and if all the other mice are running away, then the little mouse who is scared and unable to move is more likely to survive.

Similarly, most cases of feigning death belong to the "last desperate attempt", and it is an effective strategy to wait for hunters to relax their vigilance and find opportunities to escape. And fake death. Maybe it can really make some animals get to the end.

In nature, the best acting is the North American opossum (Didelphis Virginia), which deserves an Oscar in the animal kingdom.

It’s really not dead.

The North American opossum is the only marsupial living in North America. On the American continent about 70 million years ago, marsupial companions of opossums survived.

Only later, due to the rise of carnivores and other reasons, these marsupials with little resistance became extinct and went to the end. Only the opossum shoulders the fate of the whole marsupial, and survives tenaciously on the American continent, dealing with top hunters such as red fox, wolf, jaguar and short-tailed cat.

But it is in this case that the number of opossums in North America is still increasing. Among them, knowing how to play dead is a great knowledge and advantage for their survival.

The possum playing dead in Ice Age

Although the population of opossum in North America is huge, they are properly located at the "low end of the food chain", and almost any animal larger than it is a natural enemy. Therefore, opossums can only lie in the daytime and go out at night, and live by preying on insects, snails, birds, and occasionally eat some plants. In addition, the North American opossum moving on the ground without the shelter of trees is also clumsy and has poor defense ability.

When chased by the enemy to the end of the road, they will fall to the ground with a thud and enter a state of suspended animation-eyes closed, mouth slightly open, uvula spit out, belly swelled, tail drooping and winding in a circle, motionless.

When the dog comes, he can only pretend to be a dead opossum.

In order to be more realistic, the North American opossum will tremble slightly when it falls down, and its breathing and heart rate will slow down and its body temperature will drop while shivering. In addition, the glands near their anus will secrete a foul yellow-green mucus, which tastes like a highly corrupt corpse. If I don’t know, I really think it has been dead for three days and nights, and the body stinks. And this can often deter hunters and make it difficult to swallow.

It is precisely because of the grandiose acting skills of the North American opossum that people have specially invented a word "play possum" to describe the behavior of some people who pretend to be deaf and deaf.

Playing dead pig nose snake

Similar to the possum’s way of playing dead, there is also a pig-nosed snake. When encountering a hunter, the pig-nosed snake will bluff first, spread its neck ribs and make a horrible hiss, just like being possessed by a cobra.

But when bluffing doesn’t work, they will decisively enter the suspended animation mode, with their bellies turned up, their mouths opened to spit out the letter, and even oozing blood drops. The pig-nosed snake, like the opossum, also carries its own chemical weapons, which will give off an extremely unpleasant smell and very dissuade it.

Therefore, animals’ suspended animation is not simply lying on the ground, but they will also make themselves more difficult to swallow through various strategies.

What is even more surprising is that some animals in nature have learned to use the "rigidity and stillness" of other animals to hunt.

Whether in the wild, in captivity or in the laboratory, humans have long discovered that sharks, the top hunters, can also fake their deaths.

Turning the shark over and stimulating the skin around its nose may trigger the shark’s suspended animation for up to 15 minutes. Using shark’s suspended animation can also make researchers reduce the shark’s struggle and reduce the probability of injury to both sides when subduing sharks.

However, some people think that this rigidity and stillness of sharks is not due to fear, but related to reproduction. Studies have shown that after obtaining the mating right of the female, the male will also turn over the female body to cause rigidity and stillness, thus making the whole mating process smoother and easier.

But in any case, killer whales with IQ of off the charts seem to have seen through everything, and have learned to kill sharks by faking their deaths.

When encountering a shark, killer whales don’t rush to fight, but rush over and knock it over, biting the shark with their mouths so that it can enter a state of rigidity and stillness.

In 1997, someone photographed this precious picture of killer whales "outwitting" great white sharks off the coast of California, USA. Sharks in this state easily become the lunch of killer whales. Another example of killer whales "hypnotizing" their prey took place in New Zealand, and the victim was a stingray.

Fight scene in 1997

It can be seen that playing dead is really not omnipotent, and the "final interpretation right" is still in the hands of hunters. Finally, by the way, it is really useless to "pretend to be dead" when you meet a bear in the wild. If you meet a bear who has been hungry or sick, pretending to be dead is equivalent to sending a lunch box directly.

Original title: How useful is "Animals Playing Dead"? They will die for you in minutes.

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