Introduction

This chapter provides an overview of each chapter on the subject of death feigning (thanatosis)—a tactic of remaining motionless as a strategy to avoid predation. Since DarwinDarwin (Mental evolution in animals. With a posthumous essay on instinct by Charles Darwin. London: Kegan Paul Trench & Co., 1883), death-feigning behavior has been documented across a wide range of animal taxa. Predator–prey interactions have been a central focus in the fields of animal behaviour and behavioural ecology for decades. While neurophysiological studies on immobility and psychological research on fear responses have a relatively long history, death feigning as an anti-predator strategy in an evolutionary ecological context remained largely understudied. Compared to other well-researched strategies such as crypsis, aposematism, active defence, and escape behaviour as ecological context, empirical studies on death feigning were scarce until the early 2000s. As a result, there was little data to demonstrate whether this behaviour actually contributes to survival. While working in the field of pest control, I became deeply fascinated when I observed that a species of weevil—considered a pest targeted for eradication—would become completely motionless in a distinctive posture when stimulated. That was the moment I first encountered death-feigning behaviour, which has become the focus of my research for over a quarter of a century.