Animal Behavior Science

From a noted Cambridge zoologist, a wildly fun and scientifically sound exploration of what alien life must be like, using universal laws that govern life on Earth and in space. Scientists are confident that life exists elsewhere in the universe. Yet rather than taking a realistic approach to...

Weaving decades of field observations with exciting new discoveries about the brain, Carl Safina's landmark book offers an intimate view of animal behavior to challenge the fixed boundary between humans and nonhuman animals.

"In this thought-provoking, handsomely illustrated book, Italian neurobiologist Stefano Mancuso considers the fundamental differences between plants and animals and challenges our assumptions about which is the ‘higher’ form of life.” —The Wall Street Journal “Fascinating…full of...

A captivating and insightful deep dive into the world of human intuition, exploring the power of this elusive phenomenon and how it can be harnessed to better know and trust ourselves. We rely on our intuition, even though we don’t fully understand what it is, how it works, or if we can even...

When we see a bird flying from branch to branch happily chirping, it is easy to imagine they lead a simple life of freedom, flight, and feathers. What we don't see is the arduous, life-threatening challenges they face at every moment. Beaks, Bones and Bird Songs guides the listener through the myriad, and often almost miraculous, things that birds do every day to merely stay alive. Like the goldfinch, which manages extreme weather changes by doubling the density of its plumage in winter.

A playful deep dive into anthropomorphism (our peculiar tendency to humanize the nonhuman) that will resonate with anyone who has thrown a birthday party for their dog. Bestselling science writer Justin Gregg explores the science behind our instinct to see ourselves in the creatures and objects...

When the opossum feels threatened, she becomes paralyzed. Her body temperature plummets, her breathing and heart rates drop to a minimum, and her glands simulate the smell of a putrefying corpse. Playing Possum explores what the opossum and other creatures can teach us about how we and other species understand mortality, and demonstrates that the concept of death, far from being a uniquely human attribute, is widespread in the animal kingdom.

Brought to you by Penguin. From celebrated author Jay Griffiths comes a unique and heartfelt insight into the healing nature of our relationship with animals Pet-owners and animal-lovers instinctively know that animals heal. This book offers the evidence, drawing widely on scientific discoveries...

Why do three out of four professional football players go bankrupt? How can illiterate jungle dwellers pass a test that tricks Harvard philosophers? And why do billionaires work so hard - only to give their hard-earned money away? When it comes to making decisions, the classic view is that humans are eminently rational. But growing evidence suggests instead that our choices are often irrational, biased, and occasionally even moronic. Which view is right - or is there another possibility?

Dogs have been mankind's faithful companions for tens of thousands of years, yet today they are regularly treated as either pack-following wolves or furry humans. The truth is, dogs are neither - and our misunderstanding has put them in serious crisis. What dogs really need is a spokesperson, someone who will assert their specific needs.

This delightful narrative takes listeners on a powerful search to unlock the secrets of dog cognition, based on evidence from trainers, owners, behaviorists, and the animals themselves. With in-depth reporting and more than a few personal adventures, best-selling author Jennifer S. Holland digs into what intelligence really means.

From dinosaurs fighting to their deaths to elephant-sized burrowing ground sloths, this book takes listeners on a global journey deep into the earth's past. Locked in Time showcases fifty of the most astonishing fossils ever found, brought together in five fascinating chapters that offer an unprecedented glimpse at the real-life behaviors of prehistoric animals.

The New York Times bestselling authors of The Genius of Dogs take us into their “Puppy Kindergarten” at Duke University, a center to study how puppies develop, to show us what goes in to raising a great dog. Don’t miss Brian Hare and Vanessa Woods in Netflix’s film Inside the Mind of a...

Susanne Schötz is hard at work on breaking the cat code. She is a professor at Lund University in Sweden, where a long-standing research program is proving that cats do actually use vocal communication-with each other and with their human caretakers. Understanding the vocal strategies used in human-cat communication will have profound implications for how we communicate with our pets and has the potential to improve the relationship between animals and humans within several fields, including animal therapy, veterinary medicine, and animal sheltering.

The thrilling story of how our senses evolved and how they shape our encounters with the world Our senses are what make life worth living. They allow us to appreciate a sip of an ice-cold drink, the sound of laughter, the touch of a lover. But only recently have incredible advances in sensory...

An entertaining investigation of the numerical abilities of animals and our own appetite for arithmetic The philosopher Bertrand Russell once observed that realizing that a pair of apples and the passage of two days could somehow both be represented by the concept we call “two” was one...

Why Elephants Cry is a fascinating frolic through the literature and evidence surrounding the use of unusual behavior of animals to measure and predict the environment. The role of animals, from the smallest ant to the biggest elephant, as predictors of environmental changes is framed around the climate crisis, which highlights the increasingly important part that animals will have to play in the future. Renowned biologist Professor John T. Hancock collects anecdotal stories and myths along with scientific evidence, demonstrating that observation of animals can be of tangible use.

Noted science writer Virginia Morell explores the frontiers of research on animal cognition and emotion, offering a surprising and moving exploration into the hearts and minds of wild and domesticated animals. Have you ever wondered what it is like to be a fish? Or a parrot, dolphin, or...

A New York Times Editor’s Pick ** People Best Books ** Publishers Weekly Most Anticipated Books ** Chicago Tribune 28 Books You Need to Read Now ** “It blew my mind to discover that adolescent animals and humans are so similar…I loved this book!” —Temple Grandin, author of Animals Make...

In this book, we’ll explore some of the most common, curious, and downright delightful behaviours animals display—especially the ones that might make you stop and go, “Wait… what?!”