1y ago

What happens to my Corpse if I die in a Forest?

I was just randomly checking out what Funerals costs and was shocked how expensive it was! €3.500 to €5.500! I live in north Germany, and we have here some very deep Woods. So I was thinking what would happen if I just die there. Let’s say no one ever finds me. Are Animals just going to eat me, and will I just be gone in a couple of years?

EDIT: If someone knows what happens step by step I would be really curious to know :D

57 comments

I’m imagining what happens is they organize a giant search party to look for you (this is not the good kind of giant party) Eventually they find your corpse and put it in a refrigerator for a long time while your relatives argue with the police about whether you were kidnapped and murdered. Somebody pays for all this, maybe the tax payers, maybe your relatives, I don’t know. Then after all that you finally get to have your expensive funeral but on top of being sad, everybody is frustrated.
I’m thinking, better all around if you just don’t die quite yet because that shit is just awkward.
Gluck auf!
- I love the sentiment: "just don't die because it's awkward AF". If "joie de vivre" doesn't make you cling to life, there's always social anxiety even after death 🤣
- So what you’re saying is that you need to make the crime scene interesting so people aren’t frustrated. Got it.
  
  A tripwire that sets off a bunch of confetti when they find your corpse.
- What if I yeet myself into a volcano and leave a note explaining?
  
  No, Mr Frodo! I won't let you!
- What happens if I commit suicide by fire? And maybe with a fan to blow away the ashes?
  Basically what if there is no body?
  
  So an incineration to ashes requires something like several sustained hours at 4000⁰, you would basically have to build a pyre
  
  Isn’t self immolation fairly agonising? I always assumed fire is the worst way to go.
If it's premeditated, you get resurrected and fined.
- Gosh damn it. Can I Go Back to dead after I pay up? If yes it might still be cheaper tho.
  
  Nope, sorry. Gonna have to die legally after that.
Funeral homes don't want you to know this one weird trick!
Plot twist: OP has a body to dispose but not their own.
- Even I thought it sounded weird after I wrote this! So I tried to give at least an explanation why I thought about this topic at all! q_q
- Glad I'm not the only one thinking this
You'll start to decay, flies and maggots will infest you. When the smell reaches animals, they'll eat the meat. During that process the bones will get scattered. Insects will pick the bones clean and anything organic left (the bone fragments themselves) will eventually break down.
- I'm aware that bodies will be eaten up, but I have to say, I have absolutely zero intuition, how long it will take.
  Germany doesn't have many wild animals left, so only foxes, birds, maybe badgers and rats are left to eat larger chunks. They'll not exactly eat you in one go.
  So, how long are we talking from body to bones? Weeks? Months?
  
  Don't think it'd even take weeks. It wouldn't be just be a couple of foxes or badgers, it'd be all of them for miles around. Scent travels a long way. Then on top of the larger (by European standards) animals, lots of birds eat carrion.
  
  Go on youtube and look for Body Farm documentaries. All the details you could possibly want.
  
  According to an article from WaPo that I found after a quick Google, Germany has around 1300 wolves. So, hey, they could eat you too!
- You're spot on!
  Your choice of words made me think though:
  Isn't the dead body the one ingesting the forrest and the native maggots and flies just clean up?
I don't think Germany has any woods where you can really disappear, most woods have enough hikers to hit almost every spot in a couple of weeks. The woods are too small and the amount of people enjoying them is too high.
You can also insure yourself to cover the funeral costs. I pay something like 50 euro per year and all funeral costs are 100% covered for the people I leave behind.
- I've never been, but the Black Forest has two segements, 394,000 ha (1521 sq mi) and 375,000 ha (1441 sq mi). Those seem big enough to become lost in.
  
  Well yes and no. The Schwarzwald area is actually not to far from where I live, I've been there often. It's a huge forest, but there are a lot of towns, homes and tourist locations in there. It's more like an area than exclusively a forest. I doubt there is any place you can walk in a straight line for more than a couple of hours before happening upon a road, home or town.
  It's also a very popular tourist location for people near and far, so it can be quite busy there.
  
  Exactly what I was thinking. I was raise there and the Black Forest is definitly big enough to never be found. It would actually be a really nice place to disappear in, waldeinsamkeit.
There's a good article you can read that explains the process of decomposition and the influence of external factors:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/neurophilosophy/2015/may/05/life-after-death
Beware of gruesome details, avoid this one if you're sensitive to this topic :)
EDIT: there's also a VICE video of a study on open-air decomposition of the body to help solve crimes in the united states
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqRo23h01qQ
- Oh thanks :D
Animals die in the woods aswell but how often do you find their corpses there? You'd be gone in no time.
Are we giving a murderer advice on how to dispose of a body?
- No this is sound financial advice for anyone under 30.
- If so, it's bad advice. Walking into the forest and becoming dead leaves pretty much all the evidence
  Like it's not hard to find cause of death when a skull is found in the remains of an exit bag
Well if you really assume your body won't be found you just decompose like any animal. Just open youtube. There are enough timelaps videos about this topic. The last few remaining things are your bones and hair. Hair just decomposes badly, bones will last even longer. Ah and any plastic and metal you are carring around of course. Clothes, and jewelry or implants like silicon boobs and hip joints.
- There's a joke in there about grannys with boob jobs, but I'm not yet depraved enough to try and find it.
Your body is very likely going to be found by dogs from hunters even in the deepest of woods (in Europe).
- I guess that too but for argument's sake say it's not
  
  You'll get eaten by bugs mostly, not gonna be pretty for sure
Short answer is Yes, animals will eat you and your corpse will be reduced to bones in some time. How much time depends on several factors, such as which animals find you or not and the temperature, humidity and sunlight the body is exposed to.
edit: fix format of quote
Quick search:
The 5 Stages of human decomposition:
1: Autolysis
2: Bloat
3: Active Decay
4: Advanced Decay
5: Skeletonization
FYI it is graphic, not too much but be warned
How does a human body decompose? | Body Farm Forensics [2:22 | May 19 2021 | Death Science]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD-bXzM5ULE
- '
  My workplace seems to have blocked this. .___.
  I will check this out at home :D
  Is it especially about what happens in Forests or just in general?
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD-bXzM5ULE
  maybe you can see it through an Invidious instance: https://invidious.fdn.fr/watch?v=cD-bXzM5ULE
Found a paper about scavengers in Europe and the team doing the study apparently did the work in Germany, so:
We found several influences having impact on the de- composition and consumption of carcasses:
• Season: In summer, carcasses are mainly con- sumed by arthropods and bacteria. Only Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) is regularly eating from rotting carcasses, while in winter consumption is done mainly by vertebrates. Wild Boar (Sus scrofa), Wolf (Canis lupus), Pine Marten (Martes martes), Domestic Cat (Felis catus) and Raccoon Dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides) used carcasses only in winter, especially after snowfall. In winter there are large flocks of Raven (Corvus corax) at the carcass, in summer only the resident couple.
• Condition of carcass: It makes a significant dif- ference if the road kill shows open wounds or if the animal died of inside injuries. With no open wounds even White Tailed Eagle (Haliaeetus al- bicilla) with its strong beak has difficulties in opening a carcass, and trying to open it is time consuming. In combination with the season, the carcass starts rotting fast in summer and will not be used by most vertebrates. We have evidence for just one case when Ravens Corvus corax) were able to open the softer skin of a Wild Boar’s (Sus scrofa) belly and feed on the intes- tines.
• Age of scavenger: While adult Red Foxes (Vulpes vulpes) will eat of any carcass, the pup- pies are mainly feeding on the large insects near and on the carcasses.
• Feeding strategy: Ravens (Corvus corax) do not actually feed at the carcass. They fill their craw with meat, hide it away and come back for more meat. As we often find more than 20 Ravens (Corvus corax) at the same carcass, consumption rate can be accelerated much by Ravens (Corvus corax).
• Competition: Interspecific and intraspecific competition is more complicated than expected. Although adult White Tailed Eagles (Haliaeetus albicilla) dominate young ones at the carcasses, in groups of Raven (Corvus corax) there will be one to mob any eagle by pulling their feathers on the wings or tail. This strategy fails when used on Buzzards (Buteo buteo) as the Buzzard (Bu- teo buteo) will strike back and single Ravens get mobbed themselves by Red Kites (Milvus milvus) stealing the Raven’s meat stored in a hideaway. Competition between vertebrates and bacteria is also remarkable; it seems to follow “first come, first served”
Citation:
Scavenging Birds and Ecosystem Services Experience from Germany
Xiaoying Gu, Rene Krawczynski
Doesn't Germany have cheap body disposal options?
At very least you ought to be able to donate your body for medical training
- They have a lot of experience disposing of lots of bodies efficiently. They'll sort op out.
  
  I did Nazi that joke coming.
Forest would be slower than ocean, assuming it's not a part of the ocean with anoxia.
Does it really matter. What's a corpse to a dead man!

57 comments