Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and beginning April 20th, 2021 (Eastern Time) the Yahoo Answers website will be in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.

Do animals go to war too?

6 Answers

Relevance
  • 1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    You're talking of organised aggression, rather than one-to-one fights. There are undoubtedly territorial disputes where a territory has particular value in terms of food or shelter confer value on a territory, and if the young of the species are in the shelter, an animal attaches additional value to its territory. In many species territorial ownership helps to attract mates, and the potential mates may assess the attractions and quality a territory, rather than directly assessing those of the prospective candidates for mating. Animals can be badly injured or even killed during some territorial encounters. Certain insect species will unite in attacking an enemy -- bees for instance, which fight to the death, as they can't survive once they've stung -- and anyone who has fallen prey to invading army ants (I can still remember those horrible bites on my feet now when they entered my house!) will be aware of how organised they are against any creature seen as prey/the enemy.

    There is too the phenomenon of animals picking on one particular victim when in an enclosed space (rats in a trap), but that is bullying rather than war.

  • Anonymous
    5 years ago

    If you are asking whether it is ever ethical to expend an animals life to conserve a human life then the answer is yes it is even in war. Although I suspect you consider war an unethical enterprise. However, if war can, under particular circumstances, be an ethical enterprise then there will no doubt be instances where the use of animals is also ethical. Regarding the "Additional Details": Yes. I think that there is a rather large body of "professional" opinion about this topic. Given you stats, I think you are just stirring the pot to elicit unsophisticated opinion. Hence my rather brief remarks with not arguementive support.

  • 1 decade ago

    In 1998, researchers in Uganda saw a group of male chimpanzees beating on and swaggering around another male chimp’s freshly killed body. Its windpipe, fingernails and testicles were torn out.

    The finding added to a growing number of documented incidents of chimpanzees ganging up on, hunting down and killing each other—activities in which some researchers find eerie parallels to human war.

    Depending on your definition of war, there could be numerous examples in nature. Interactions of rival ant colonies come to mind as well. Nature is NOT a peaceful idyllic existence. It's brutal and all about survival.

  • 1 decade ago

    Yes i know many colonies of ants do that is the main reason why they have soldier ants to protect them from other ants

  • How do you think about the answers? You can sign in to vote the answer.
  • 1 decade ago

    Sometimes they do! A good example is termites and ants. And no, thats not just in the movie "Ants"

  • 1 decade ago

    Yes, and a mass extinction happens.

Still have questions? Get your answers by asking now.