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Tonic Immobility

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Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior

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Synonyms

Apparent death; Animal hypnosis; Feigning death; Playing possum; Thanatosis

Definition

The term “tonic immobility” (TI) is often defined as a stage of animal to become temporarily immobile upon external stimulus. In physiologist perspective, this behavior referred as a temporary loss of muscle and/or neurological function in response to a threat (Gallup 1974). Some writers used the term “feigning death” or “apparent death” because of its definite survival value as part of their defense mechanism in certain situation.

Introduction

Currently, there are three hypotheses on how TI potentially increases survival chances of animals (reviewed in Rogers and Simpson 2014). First, fire-bellied toads (Bombinaspp.) may escape from predator by “death” displays with additional chemical secretion as aposematic warning system. Second, insects such as pygmy grasshopper (Tetrigidae) were seen stretching out its body and causes it is hard to be eaten by predator. Thirdly, arthropods may use TI...

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References

  • Gallup, G. G., Jr. (1974). Animal hypnosis: Factual status of afictional concept. Phychological Bulletin, 81(11), 836.

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  • Miyatake, T., Katayama, K., Takeda, Y., Nakashima, A., Sugita, A., & Muzimoto, M. (2004). Is death-feigning adaptive? Heritable variation in fitness difference of death-feigning behavior. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 271(1554), 2293–2296.

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  • Rogers, S. M., & Simpson, S. J. (2014). Thanatosis. Current Biology, 24(21), R1031–R1033.

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  • Rusli, M. U., Booth, D. T., & Wu, N. (2016). Tonic immobility in newly emerged sea turtle hatchlings. Chelonian Conservation and Biology, 15(1), 143–147.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Marine and Environmental Sciences, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Kuala Terengganu, Terengganu, Malaysia

    Mohd Uzair Rusli

Authors
  1. Mohd Uzair Rusli
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Correspondence to Mohd Uzair Rusli .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University , Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Jennifer Vonk

  2. Department of Psychology, Oakland University Department of Psychology, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Todd Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology, Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

    Caroline Leuchtenberger

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© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG

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Rusli, M.U. (2018). Tonic Immobility. In: Vonk, J., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_688-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_688-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-47829-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-47829-6

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