gangrene; necrosis; state imitating death
is a form of protective behaviour where the creature pretends to be dead. Many Predators only eat live prey and will walk away. A wide variety of creatures use this behaviour to avoid predation.
thanatosis, thanatosia 1. Religious rites in honor of the dead. 2. Putting to death. 3. The act of feigning death. 4. The sum of the morphological changes indicative of cell death and caused by the progressive degradative action of enzymes which may affect groups of cells or part of a structure or a bodily organ. 5. In medicine, gangrene or deat...
the behaviour of feigning death, usually to deceive a predator.
feigning death