Yes the elephant ‘mourning’ ritual is very real as are their seemingly unexplainable fascination with elephant skulls. Some of the higher apes also have been observed to exhibit grieve like emotions as well as some wolfs. However – in terms of an actual ritual, it seems to be limited to humans, elephants and depending on your interpretation, possibly gorillas.
Dolphins doesn’t have a proper ritual but they are famous for epimeletic behaviour. It means they help other animals or sometimes human in distress.
Moreover dolphins have been seen to carry around dead calf for days after.
I have known cases when a pet animal sits by the grave of its companion if that gets buried in the garden but I don’t think they have the same degree of mourning as humans do
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Kevin commented on :
I don’t think there is anything outside of anecdotes to say that pet species mourn – it is not something that is scientifically verified!