A recent newspaper article called "Elephant tears: Newborn weeps after being parted from mother who tried to kill him" reports about a newborn male elephant who "cried for five hours without stopping after he was rejected by his mother." So the question is do they mourn, weep, or cry as their emotional response? Just keep reading to get the answer.
In a nutshell, available information supports the view that other animals do cry and weep and that they can be closely associated with various emotions, including sadness and grief that are associated with loss. Of course, crying or weeping may be more hard-wired, in this case the infant elephant responding to a loss of much needed touch or what is also called "contact comfort" offered by his mother. One worker quoted in the above article noted, "The calf was very upset and he was crying for five hours before he could be consoled." Humans did try to calm him down but their touch is not the same as another elephant's, and of course there could also be visual and olfactory components associated with the potpourri of contact comfort.
So, while we are not 100% certain, solid scientific research supports the view that elephants and other nonhuman animals weep as part of an emotional response. Rather than dismissing this possibility as merely storytelling, we need to study it in more detail. After all, "the plural of anecdote is data" and stories and citizen science can and should motivate rigorous scientific research. And, let's not forget that many "surprises" have been discovered in the emotional lives of animals including laughing rats and dogs and empathic chickens, mice, and rats, all published in outstanding peer reviewed professional journals.
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