Have you ever seen a human play dead?
Lots of animals do this to try and escape a toothy death.
Life moves. If it doesn’t move, it’s usually dead or a rock.
We call it ‘playing’ dead because staying alive is work.
To play dead, you just have to do nothing. Don’t even bother breathing.
Playing dead can work quite well if you’re an opossum or a frog or some other prey that can’t move very fast. So if you’re trapped by a hungry bear, playing dead could be a great shout.
Otherwise, work alive.