[hide=] I'm pretty sure they are. Death is one of the most fundamentally and universally understood occurances in the natural world... But non-sentient animals aren't actualy aware of death, just instinctively afraid of it. Hmm fair point... awareness and fear are different, but then again can you be afraid of something that you're not aware of? (This is different to being scared of something that you don't know about, because in that situation you are aware of what's there, you just know nothing/little about it.) Perhaps - as living organisms that can feel pain - they're scared of pain/great pain rather than being afraid of death? Just a thought... but I'm guessing that animals see death fairly often and so even if they can't communicate their worry to others they'll still know about it. [/hide] Think that's it, that they're scared of pain. I think if another animal's died that they just assume it's in a really heavy sleep. But I'm not sure they know that they'll die too at some point.