After a rollercoaster life, Dorothy died at a chimpanzee rescue center in Cameroon. This photo, showing her chimp family observe the burial, went viral on the internet and raised the question, can animals really exhibit funeral behavior?

Dorothy's mother was killed by hunters. They then sold her to an amusement park in Cameroon where she was chained to the ground and taught to drink beer and smoke cigarettes for noisy crowds. Poor diet and lack of exercise made Dorothy obese. In May of 2000 she was brought to Cameroon's Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center and rehabilitated. She became a favorite at the center and even mothered a child of her own. But in September of 2008 she died of congestive heart failure. The management let her chimpanzee family witness the burial. “Some chimps displayed aggression while others barked in frustration,” a worker who photographed the event later explained. “But perhaps the most stunning reaction was a recurring, almost tangible silence. If one knows chimpanzees, then one knows that they are not usually silent creatures.”

The photo of the chimp funeral went viral on the internet and was published in the November 2009 issue of National Geographic. It shows Dorothy under a light blue sheet in a wheelbarrow being pushed to the burial site by a park worker. Another worker holds Dorothy's head gently in her hands. Behind a fence in the background are more than a dozen chimpanzees, staring intently, looking visibly sad. Chimpanzees, along with African elephants, ants and magpies are some of the few animals known to exhibit funeral behavior. Interestingly, they are all social animals. “Perhaps their grief reactions function as a social signal that allows for reshuffling of status relationships, facilitates filling of the reproductive vacancy left by the deceased, or fosters continuity of the group,” speculates Janis Dickinson, of Cornell's Ornithology Lab, in an essay on yellow-billed magpies.

READ ABOUT HOW GORILLAS, PARROTS AND HORSES COMMIT SUICIDE TOO

When a yellow-billed magpie dies other magpies will swoop down to the carcass and hop about, making loud squawking noises. The display is considered a funeral related action and was discovered in 1972 by a biologist named Nicholas Verbeek. “Could the magpies be expressing grief?” questions Dickinson. Until further research is done, nobody really knows for certain. But Mark Bekoff, of the University of Colorado, thinks they just might be. In 2009, he released a paper describing the results of a study where he spent time observing magpies alongside a magpie corpse. Two actually approached the corpse, gently pecking at it, then stepped away. Another flew off, only to return with some grass which it laid on the body. “We can't know what they were actually thinking or feeling,” said Bekoff. “But reading their action there's no reason not to believe these birds were saying a magpie farewell to their friend.”

African elephants have been known to gather around decaying corpses and bawl. They touch the bodies with their trunks and sometimes bury the carcass with tree branches. They'll even remove bones and tusks and pass them around, or carry them off. In 2008, a 38 year-old elephant named Tequila living at the Toronto Zoo died suddenly. Staff found her daughter Thika standing beside her mother's body for hours, digging at the ground and throwing dirt over the body. “Elephants are extremely intelligent,” explained one zoo official. Two years prior, zoo staff videotaped the funeral behavior that followed the death of a 40 year-old elephant named Patsy. “The elephants who got along with Patsy came up to touch her with their trunks while the ones who fought with her stood further back,” reported a newspaper article.

FUNERAL ETIQUETTE—WHAT TO SAY AND WHAT TO DO

And then there are ants. We have all seen the lines of them weaving along the floor of the forest, or our living room, mysteriously keeping to the same path. What not everyone notices is that when an ant dies in line, a certain ant comes along to remove the body, the undertaker ant. It will gather up all the corpses and make a pile, then mine sand from the colony's tunnel system, one grain at a time, and use it to cover them. One particularly contemplative blogger describes the experience of observing undertaker ants at work: “Questions entered my mind as I watched them. Why didn't they just bring the bodies down into the tunnels with them instead of bringing the sand up to the bodies? Why did they want to bury the bodies in the first place? Are there minister ants to speak at the funerals?”

The recent animal die offs have been blamed on warm weather, cold weather, low oxygen levels, high pollution levels, fireworks, lightning and the rapid movement of the magnetic north pole towards Russia. Some scientists think the earth's sixth great extinction may be underway.

Thousands of turtle doves rained down on car roofs in northeastern Italy, two million dead fish washed ashore in the Chesapeake, 100,000 fish died in rivers in the Ozarks, 450 red-winged blackbirds, brown-headed cowbirds, grackles and starlings littered a highway in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, three thousand blackbirds fell on roads and roofs in the small town of Beebe, Arkansas, 70 Mexican free-tailed bats croaked on a path in Tucson, Arizona, dozens of jackdaws were found dead in the streets of Falkoping, in southern Sweden, scores of dead fish turned up in a small Haitian lake near the Dominican border, thousands of devil crabs washed ashore along the Kent coast in southeastern England, hundreds of snapper were found dead in New Zealand, one hundred tons of sardines, croaker and catfish washed up dead along the coast of Brazil, hundreds of fish turned up dead near Lapu-Lapu City in the Philippines, more than 150 tonnes of red tilapia died in the province of Dong Thap in southern Vietnam and scores of American coots were found dead on a Texas bridge. All this in the past two weeks, which leaves one wondering, what on earth is happening?

The recent mass animal die offs have been blamed on warm weather, cold weather, low oxygen levels, high pollution levels, fireworks, lightning and the rapid movement of the magnetic north pole towards Russia. The event has been termed The Aflockolypse and some have connected it with the coming end of the Mayan calendar in 2012, which certain individuals predict will mark the end of the world. Others, such as this conspiracy theorist commenter on the conservative website Prisonplanet.com, suggest more political underpinnings: “It looks to me as if the cases of bird and fish death only occurred in regions with allegiance to western military power. No deaths in the vast regions of Russia and China…the whole Asian region is also free of animal deaths, with one single exception, Cambodia. It's the western world powers that are affected. Conclusion? Looks like a military experiment.”

There are times in history when life has been wiped out in vast numbers, referred to as mass extinctions or Extinction Level Events (ELEs). There is generally thought to have been five major ELE's throughout history. The Ordovician-Silurian extinction refers to a pair of events that occurred between 440 and 450 million years ago and was caused by a massive glaciation that locked up much of the world's water as ice and caused sea levels to drop dramatically, decimating marine organisms. The Late Devonian extinction was a series of extinctions that spanned 20 million years and wiped out 70 percent of all species. The largest extinction in the history of the planet occurred 250 million years ago with the Permian-Triassic extinction, known simply as the Great Dying. About 96 percent of all marine species and 70 percent of all land species were eliminated, including insects. The recovery of vertebrates took 30 million years. Many scientists believe an asteroid or comet triggered the die off but no target crater has been found. Another theory is that an extensive arc of seeping volcanoes in Siberia triggered powerful climate shifts that brought about the die offs.

The Triassic-Jurassic event, 205 million years ago, wiped out about one-quarter of marine species and most large amphibians, leaving the dinosaurs with little competition and aiding their rise. Massive floods of lava erupting from within the central Atlantic may have caused this event. The Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction, known simply as the K-T event, occurred 65.5 million years ago and wiped out 75 percent of all species on the planet, including the dinosaurs. The event is thought to have been caused by an asteroid which crashed into the northern tip of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. Global warming fueled by volcanic eruptions at the Deccan Flats in India may also have played a part.

Many scientists believe the earth's sixth great extinction is underway. “The blame for this one, perhaps the fastest in earth's history, falls firmly on the shoulders of humans,” notes a National Geographic article. Maybe the conspiracy theorists aren't so far off.

Doctors at work on cryogenic preservation. Alcor Life Extension Foundation is an Arizona based company whose mission is to preserve human bodies until the science of the future can revive and heal them. Among those cryogenically frozen is baseball star Ted Williams.

Every day, Ray Kurzweil, an American writer and inventor, ingests 150-250 supplements and drinks 8-10 glasses of alkaline water and 10 cups of green tea. He regularly measures the chemical composition of his bodily fluids and on weekends he receives intravenous transfusions of chemical cocktails he believes will “reprogram” his biochemistry. He abhors soda and coffee, and eats mainly vegetables, lean meats, tofu and organic foods with low glycemic loads. He claims he has not consumed sugar for years. Kurzweil is a futurist, and believes that within the next couple of decades microscopic machines will be able to travel through a person's body and repair damaged cells, enabling people to live vastly longer lives. His rigid routine is an effort to ensure he lives to see the time when this technology has actually been developed. And just in case he dies beforehand, Kurzweil has made arrangements with a company called Alcor Life Extension Foundation to chemically preserve his body and freeze it in liquid nitrogen, until a time when technology will be able to revive him so the micro-machines can heal him.

Alcor was founded in 1972 and is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona. The company has 85 cryopatients and fewer than a dozen employees, all of whom have made arrangements to be cryopreserved themselves in the future. “At the present time the technology required for the realization of our goal far exceeds current technical capabilities,” says the company's website. “We expect to wait for decades to see this vision fulfilled.” But despite the uncertainty, the allure of living forever has led more and more people to consider the option.

The first human to be cryogenically preserved was a University of California psychology professor named James Bedford, who died of kidney cancer in 1967, at the age of 73. Just two years prior, the Life Extension Society, regarded as the first cryonics organization in the world, had offered to preserve a person free of charge—their advertisement read, “the Life Extension Society now has primitive facilities for emergency short term freezing and storing our friend the large homeotherm”. Bedford was offered as a candidate and accepted. His body was frozen a few hours after his death by a group of leading cryonics physicians and thinkers, including science fiction writer Robert Prehoda, author of the later book, Suspended Animation.

Bedford was injected with dimethyl sulfoxide, a colorless liquid said to have an oyster or garlic-like taste and has the distinctive property of penetrating the skin very readily. But the chemical is now considered a primitive cryoprotectant; Bedford's brain may not actually have been protected. Presently, an anti-freeze is used, which prevents ice formation. Bedford's body was stored at Edward Hope's Cryo-Care facility in Phoenix, then moved to a facility in California called Geliso, then moved again to Trans Time, near Berkeley, California. In 1977, Bedford's son, who lived in southern California, took over the body, which was still preserved in liquid nitrogen. Five years later, it was transferred to Alcor. Examiners concluded that despite all the moving about, Bedford's external temperature had remained “at relatively low subzero temperatures throughout the storage interval.”

Baseball great Ted Williams may not have been so lucky. After he died on July 5 2002, his body was flown on a private jet to Alcor's facility in Scottsdale. Doctors shaved his head, severed it then drilled a series of holes and stored it in a steel can filled with liquid nitrogen. A 2003 Sports Illustrated article reported that an Alcor worker who was present at the time said the head was cracked accidentally, in ten different places.

William's body was stood upright in a nine-foot tall cylindrical steel tank filled with liquid nitrogen. A fight within the family soon followed. Williams' eldest daughter, Bobby-Jo, had fought against the process, pointing out that her dad's will stipulated he be cremated and his ashes scattered off the Florida coast. But a handwritten note dated three years after the will was signed indicates that Williams and his son John Henry and granddaughter Claudia formed a pact to all be cryogenically frozen after their deaths. “This is what we want,” read the document, “to be able to be together in the future, even if it is only a chance.”

Joe Rollino, who once lifted 475 pounds with his teeth, was recently struck dead by a minivan at the age of 104. There are 60,000 plus centenarians in the United States but there are only 75 validated supercentenarians on the planet.

Mighty Joe Rollino was struck by a minvan while crossing the street in Brooklyn, earlier this month. At a nearby hospital, the man considered by some as “for his size, the strongest man that ever lived”—he lifted 475 pounds with his teeth and once pressed 600 plus pounds with a single finger—was pronounced dead. He was 104.

Rollino was a centenarian, a rank reserved for those who live above 100. There may be 60,000 or more of them in the United States. A far more elite status is that of supercentenarian, those people age 110 and up. The concept is so new it is not in most dictionaries, and according to the Gerontology Research Group (GRG), which catalogues and verifies claims, there are only 20 verified supercentenarians in the U.S., and just 75 on the entire planet.

The GRG is a mix off homespun and highfalutin. Their simple website appeals for contributions “of even one dollar per month to further research” but also states the lofty goal of “slowing” and “ultimately reversing human aging within the next 20 years.” The GRG consists of physicians, scientists, engineers and a globetrotting clique known as supercentenarian claims investigators.

In 2006, a GRG claims investigator visited Maria Esther Capovilla in the industrial seaside city of Guayaquil, Ecuador. Born in 1889, Capovilla was 116, and at the time, the oldest living person on earth. Sadly, six months after the GRG visit she died of pneumonia. Other GRG investigations have included the case of Mary and Rosabell Zielke, the world's first confirmed mother-daughter supercentenarians, or that of Ruth Anderson, of Minnesota, who at 110 is the oldest singleton twin—her twin brother, Abel, died back in 1900, at the age of one.

Interest in the topic is blooming and there are a host of impressive institutions conducting research. The Supercentenarian Research Foundation is comprised by physicians from the U.S. and Europe and aims to increase lifespan for all. Boston University School of Medicine's “New England Centenarian Study” began by looking at the genes of Bostonian centenarians and the Longevity Genes Project at Yeshiva University's Albert Einstein College of Medicine focuses on the genes of Ashkenazi Jews. The Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research's International Database on Longevity is a centenarian tracking group, similar to GRG.

Longevityexperts.com offers a long list of tips for attaining supercentenarianhood, anything from buying an air filter, to walking three to five times a week and eating wild salmon and extra virgin olive oil. One of their tips seems more like a glimpse into a supercentenarian-friendly future: “Someday tiny nano-bots (nano sized robots) will float through the blood stream delivering all the nutrients that each part of the body needs, in just the correct quantities, based on each persons genetic make-up. These nano-bots will also be able to deliver medication to exact locations in precise doses.”

The Okinawa Centenarian Study has a particularly rich sample to work with; Japan accounts for one-third of the supercentenarians on the GRG's master list. Among the group is Kama Chinen, a woman from Okinawa who having lived for 114 years and 258 days, is presently the world's oldest person. Numerous books have capitalized on the aged success of the Okinawan people, such as “The Okinawa Way: How to Improve Your Health and Longevity Dramatically” and “The Okinawa Diet Plan: Get Leaner, Live Longer and Never Feel Hungry”.

What is the secret? Much of it may indeed be diet, deep sea fish like mackerel, sardines and salmon, which are rich in omega-3 fatty acids; vegetables like peppers, broccoli, purple sweet potato and goya, a green, bumpy vegetable related to the watermelon, and a practice of reduced caloric intake called hara hachi bu, which entails eating until you are 80 percent full and then stopping. These relatively isolated tropical islands also benefit from fresh water and clean air. A tiny island near Okinawa called Tokushima produced Shigechiyo Izumi, who died at the age of 120 in 1986, perhaps the oldest man ever to live.

Izumi's claim was never validated by the GRG, which was not founded until the early 1990s, and is, in general, disputed. The case raises an important question for tracking groups like GRG: How many supercentenarian lives end without being accounted for?

A New York Times article from 1897 gives the example of a man from Guadalajara, Mexico named Jesus Campeche, who, according to the article, died at the ripe age of 154:

“He was living with his great great grandson and had copies of the church register at Valladolid Spain, showing the date of his birth and baptism. According to these papers, he was born December 12, 1742. He related incidents which occurred in the last century, showing that he had told the truth or had stored his mind well with the happenings of that time. A priest in the church which he attended, who is now 84 years old, says he remembers Campeche as being an old man when he was a little boy.”

"Life-weariness and the determination to end miseries in a sudden manner are not confined to the human race," reads an 1878 article in "The Popular Science Monthly". The paper provides colorful examples of horses and dogs that have committed suicide. (Photo courtesy of NOAA)

An 8 year-old lowland gorilla named Muchana was found dead in his sleeping quarters at the St. Louis Zoo, last Spring. He had pulled apart his climbing rope and become entangled. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) claimed negligence, pointing out that the zoo had been fined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the connection with the death of two polar bears in 2007. Some reports suggested that Muchana may have committed suicide. Native American beliefs accommodate such an outcome, but what about Western ones?

“It has been asserted that ‘mere brutes' never commit suicide,” reads an article in The Popular Science Monthly, from 1878. “This is a wanton, it might be said an impudent, assumption.”

Birds, reptiles and other caged animals can persistently refuse food; isn't that suicide, the article argues.

More clear-cut animal suicides exist too. The article continues: “There are many instances among domestic animals, proving that life-weariness and the determination to end miseries in a sudden manner are not confined to the human race.”

The article presents the case of the dog of Mr. George Hone, of Frindsbury, in England:

“The dog had been suspected of having given indications of approaching hydrophobia, and was accordingly shunned and kept as much as possible from the house. This treatment appeared to cause him much annoyance, and for some days he was observed to be moody and morose. On Thursday morning he proceeded to an intimate acquaintance of his master's at Upnar, on reaching the residence of whom, he set up a piteous cry on finding that he could not obtain admittance. After waiting at the house some little time, he was seen to go toward the river close by, when he deliberately walked down the bank, and after turning round and giving a kind of farewell howl, walked into the stream, where he kept his head under water, and in a minute or two rolled over dead.”

Then there is the case of a "very wealthy gentleman's" horse:

“A few nights ago a poor creature, worn to skin and bone, put an end to his existence in a very extraordinary manner. His pedigree is unknown, as he was quite a stranger. A very worthy gentlemen here met him in a public market, and thinking that he could find an employment for him, put him to work, but it was soon discovered that work was not his forte; in fact, he would do anything save work and go errands. His great delight was to roam about the fields and do mischief. People passing him used to ejaculate, 'Ugh, you ugly brute' when they saw the scowl which was continuously on his face. His master tried to win him by kindness. The kindness was lost upon him. He next tried the whip, then the cudgel, but all in vain. Work he would not. And as a last resort the punishment of Nebuchadnezzar of old was tried. He was turned out, 'but house or hauld,' to eat grass with the oxen. With hungry belly and broken heart he wended his lonely way down by the Moor's Shore, passed Luckyscaup, turned the Moor's Point, and still held on his lonely way, regardless of the wondering gaze of the Pool fishermen. At length he arrived at a point opposite the wreck of the Dalhousie, where he stood still; and while the curiosity of the fishermen was wound to the highest pitch as to what was to follow, he, neighing loudly and tossing his old tail, rushed madly into the briny deep, got beyond his depth, held his head under water, and soon ceased to be. The fishermen conveyed the truth, although strange and startling, tidings to the respected owner, that his horse had committed suicide.”

One of the strangest cases of animal suicide involves a bird. A 1901 New York Times article, reports the story of one Henry F. Mattjetscheck, of Hackensack, New Jersey. Mr. Mattjetscheck's parrot was “a fine talker”, loved by his household and often allowed to roam far from his cage. But when the family got a pet dog, the bird was no longer the center of attention.

One afternoon, the family went out: “When the family returned it is asserted the house was filled with gas, and the trouble was located in the kitchen, where the parrot had pecked a hole through the rubber tubing leading to the gas range and allowed the gas to escape. The bird was found lying dead beside the hole he tore in the piping; Mr. Mattjetscheck asserts that it intentionally inhaled the gas to end its life.”

The Cove, a documentary that covertly captures a dolphin slaughter in the Japanese fishing village of Taiji, won the Audience Award at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. The protagonist is Richard O'Barry, Flipper's former trainer. He became a rabid animal rights crusader after Cathy the dolphin committed suicide in his arms.

Just before Earth Day, in 1970, Cathy the dolphin committed suicide in Richard O'Barry's arms, changing his life forever.

“She looked me right in the eye, took a breath, held it—and she didn't take another one,” O'Barry recently told New York Magazine. “She just sank to the bottom of the water. That had a profound effect on me.”

O'Barry helped capture and train the dolphins on “Flipper”, which didn't exactly make him a friend of animal rights activists. Now, he is the star of one of the biggest animal rights films in years, “The Cove”, a documentary that covertly captures a dolphin slaughter in the Japanese fishing village of Taiji. He credits Cathy's suicide as the turning point that transformed him from animal captor to animal liberator.

For Americans, O'Barry's suicide story may seem ridiculous. Science tells us that animals can't intentionally kill themselves. But Native Americans view animal suicide, and death in general much differently.

“The non-native mindset is so fearful,” said Maya Piñon, a Native-born naturalist who is working on a book about animal suicide. “The culture to which I was born tells me there is nothing to fear about death. Sure, you fight to live as long as you can but when that moment comes you're like, ‘Okay, game over, I've gone on to the next dimension.'”

Piñon is of Eastern Woodland Indian descent and was raised with native values. She grew up in a rural area, in nature. “Most of my playmates were not human beings,” she said. “I always had animals and critters.”

She drew her worldview from the stories of elders, which did not separate man from animal. “We are all part of creation in Native American cosmology,” said Piñon. “The creator is the creation is the creator.”

Animals show signs of awareness all the time but most people miss them or misinterpret them. For example, a common hunting story is that a large stag locks eyes with a hunter and then strides directly at him, marching right into his bullets. “People say, ‘Stupid deer, he doesn't even know this guy is going to shoot him,'” said Piñon.

But might this story actually portray an animal that is willingly giving its life to the hunter?

“Hunters would rather brag about the 15 point buck they just bagged,” said Piñon, “and not that grandpa buck said today is the day to die and I am giving you my body.”

The difference may be in how one regards science.

“I think the mistake we tend to make in this culture is to turn everything over to scientists and let them have the last say,” said Piñon. “From a Native American cosmology that is foolhardy, because everything is related and there are always at least three reasons for something.”

One of Piñon's most potent  animal suicide stories doesn't involve a Native American, but a scientifically-minded worker at a Cornell University nature center. The man heard brakes screech outside and ran to the road to find that a woman had hit a woodchuck. The rear end of the animal was flattened and it was dragging itself in circles by its two front legs. Thinking to end its misery, the man fetched his supervisor and the two returned with a baseball bat. As they walked toward the woodchuck, it stopped panicking and stared at them. Then, it dragged itself down the road, into a ditch, up an embankment and into a pond. “This is a non-swimming mammal making a conscious decision to drown itself,” said Piñon.

Death by drowning is a common theme in the animal suicide stories Piñon has collected for her book. But, some animals choose far more gory exits, like her good friend's German shepherd, which lived to a ripe old age, then lay down in front of a train.

Animal suicides can vary, Piñon explained, just like human suicides. And they can be just as difficult to define.

“Someone who chain smokes and comes from a family of chain smokers is on a slow motion death spiral,” she said. “The other end of the spectrum is someone who juggles nitroglycerine. Is that a slow motion suicide, or tempting fate?”