Why do we not see that many animal corpses in forests, deserts etc where animals would probably be dying regularly? Do all of them get devoured by scavengers or be absorbed into the soil?
In: Earth Science
I had a tree frog outside my window when I was living in Florida for a couple of days. During the third night of not being able to sleep, I decided this thing had to go. Fast forward to me doing concentric circles around my yard with a flashlight in one had and a Cold Steel Recon Tanto in the other (it was pouring rain, by the way) at 2am. I finally found the little fucker and literally chopped him in half. All fear the mighty warrior.
Felt like shit afterwards.
The next morning I walked outside to clean up the body, only to find it *covered* in ants. By the time I got home from work, there was nothing but bones. The ants had picked it *clean* of everything, and the bones were gone a couple of days later.
The number cause of animal deaths in the wild is predation. Most animals don’t get to die peacefully while asleep, etc. They are killed by predators. The predators then eat them. Any leftovers are eaten by scavengers, maggots, etc.
Scavengers. A baby dear was stillborn near my home. We saw it shortly after birth. 48 hours later and there was nothing left but bones. Picked clean.
Between scavengers, insects, and weather…nature is really efficient at breaking down animal remains until all that is left is bones. And by then, scavengers usually scatter the bones about so there are random bits scattered about which makes it less noticeable to the casual hiker
Scavengers have an incredible sense of smell and can sniff out a dead body from a mile away. They close in immediately and “dispose” of most small corpses pretty quickly. Vultures and crows are the eyes in the sky watching for death at all times, and other predators and scavengers will follow them to a fresh scene too.
That said, I’ve definitely seen my share of waterlogged possum corpses. Seems like predators have a tough time retrieving (or don’t want) bodies that end up in stagnant water – and this area is kinda swampy.
I’ve seen a few corpses, but mainly bones. Then those bones find themselves under the soil, or if they are small rodent’s bones, then in a nest because birds of prey sometimes eat their bones. Besides this, nature has a way of cleaning things up.
Mostly scavengers, if you know what your looking for you absolutely will see body remnants in these areas. But they are also covered pretty quickly by foliage and sands.
I make good money picking up skulls/sheds in high school from nature parks around me.
I’ve conducted a study on this in my back yard for several years. A dead deer from a car accident ends up on our land almost every Fall. It is difficult to get the deer removed, so we are required to bury it. One year, the ground was frozen, so I dragged the poor deer into a field and put a trailcam on it.
Coyotes, foxes, owls, vultures, raccoons, opossums, and other deer visited the corpse. By Spring, the only thing visible was a patch of taller, greener grass.
I did the same experiment the next year and got the same results. Gone by Spring.
I found a deer skeleton in the woods this Spring and I was really surprised. I studied the beetles on it and it was about 6 months old. It was in a strange position and the head was missing. My neighbor threw the skeleton of the deer he butchered in the woods. When you don’t give the scavengers meat, the bones don’t disappear.
As a side note, the vultures in India were relied upon to dispose of the dead in the Tower of Silence in Mumbai, according to the Zoroastrian faith. However, in the 1990s, a drug used on cows wiped out 95% of the vulture population that got rid of the cadavers.
Take a dog with you into nature areas and they’ll sniff out all the bones and rotting half-eaten carcasses for you. At least mine does. Animal remains are all over the place, but they get devoured and/or decay and break down into soil.
Latest Answers