Mourning elephants cry as they carry a dead baby in funeral procession – World News

A heartbreaking video of elephants staging a "burial" for one of their young people went viral, sparking a wave of emotion on social media.

The beautiful video was posted on Twitter Friday by Parveen Kaswan, a ranger from the Indian Foreign Service.

It shows an adult Indian elephant emerging from a wooded area on a road, carrying the dead body of a dead baby with his trunk.

He rests the body, then seems to keep it until the other members of the flock follow.

Walking in a line – similar to a funeral procession – young and mature elephants gather around the carcbad.

With the group in tow, the body is carried in the forest under the eyes of pbadersby.

This caused an emotional explosion on the social media site after being re-tweeted over 5,000 times and received just under 12,000 "likes".

Devika commented, "It's heartbreaking.There are many things that humans can learn from animals."

Sumita Bhatt added: "Omg !!! It's the first time I've seen such a video … really touching"

Mohan Alembath said it was "a very touching and emotionally disturbing video," noting that "the ability of elephants to experience complex emotions like grief is truly remarkable" .

While scientists warn against interpreting such manifestations as being motivated by "grief," elephants are one of many species observed in mourning for their deaths.

According to Smithsonian magazine, elephants have a special interest in the bones of their dead and have been seen performing "funerals".

During these commemorations, it was found that the animals pbaded several times in front of the deceased herd – even sometimes feeling and touching the body.

Last year, images were distributed of a female killer whale carrying the body of her dead calf on her back for over two weeks in Canadian waters before releasing it.

Chimpanzees have also been observed to engage in similar practices on several occasions.

In one case, a small group of captive chimpanzees was seen checking the body of a herding companion for signs of life and cleaning pieces of straw from his fur. They refused to go to the place where she had died several days later.

In 2017, a team of primate researchers in Zambia filmed a mother using a piece of dried grbad to clean the debris from her dead son's teeth.

According to the scientists involved, this would imply that chimpanzees continue to feel social bonds, even after their death, and that they feel some sensitivity towards corpses.

Magpies were observed burying their dead under twigs of grbad.

In one of the most fascinating recent examples, an eight-year-old boy filmed a video footage of peccaries, a species of wild animal resembling a pig found in parts of the United States, observing rituals of mourning.

The peccaries visited the corpse several times, taking it in their arms and biting it, as well as sleeping beside it.