Overview of Each Taxon

Death-feigning behavior has been reported in a wide range of animal taxa. Taxa of animals in which death feigning, tonic immobility, or related immobility behaviors have been observed or reported are listed in Table 3.2. This chapter provides an overview of the types of immobility behaviors documented and the research conducted for each taxonomic group. The discussion begins with arthropods, followed by vertebrates. Death-feigning behavior has been reported in three animal phyla—Mollusca, Arthropoda, and Chordata—and has been observed in animals belonging to 12 classes and 49 orders. In this chapter, for each order, I provide the species in which death-feigning behavior has been reported, the corresponding references, the terminology used to describe the behavior, and the life stage at which the behavior was observed. In other words, if readers happen to observe death-feigning behavior in a taxonomic group not included in this list, such an observation would be of scientific value and worth reporting in an academic journal.