social behaviour

Book review – Selfish Genes to Social Beings: A Cooperative History of Life

8-minute read
keywords: evolutionary biology

Evolution is often characterised rather one-sidedly in terms of a struggle for existence, “red in tooth and claw”, and selfish genes. And yet, as evolutionary biologist Jonathan Silvertown shows here, cooperation in biology is both widespread and ancient. In his entertaining Dinner with Darwin which I reviewed way back in 2018, he briefly touched on food sharing in humans as one example of cooperation; in Selfish Genes to Social Beings, he gives the topic at large the book-length treatment it deserves. Silvertown here writes for a broad audience, explicitly including those without a formal background in biology. With nary an equation in sight, he relies on a potent combination of human-interest stories, wit, and ingenious metaphors to convince you that cooperation is an important component driving evolution.

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Book review – Uncovering Dinosaur Behavior: What They Did and How We Know

7-minute read
keywords: ethology, paleontology

I have written previously that deducing behaviour of extinct animals from fossils millions of years old might seem science fiction, but is very much science fact. That said, in his previous book, English palaeontologist David Hone pointed out that dinosaur behaviour is the one area where we see the greatest disconnect between what we know and what people think we know. His new book Uncovering Dinosaur Behavior is a sobering reality check for the lay reader, but I suspect that even palaeontologists might come away wondering whether there is anything we know for sure. Concise, well-structured, and beautifully illustrated by palaeoartist Gabriel Ugueto, this is a superb book that transcends “merely” being a good popular science work by also addressing professional palaeontologists.

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Book review – Why Animals Talk: The New Science of Animal Communication

7-minute read
keywords: ethology

This is the second of a three-part review on acoustic communication in animals. Zoologist Arik Kershenbaum impressed me with the previously reviewed The Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy. That popular work on astrobiology was a diversion from his actual research on vocal communication in animals. Rather than asking what animals are saying, Kershenbaum is foremost interested in why animals talk in the first place. How do they live, what do they need to say to each other, and are there any parallels with human language? The answers Kershenbaum presents are a highly stimulating and thought-provoking exercise in decentering the human experience and trying to understand animals on their terms.

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Book review – Dinosaur Behavior: An Illustrated Guide

6-minute read
keywords: paleontology

Reconstructing how dinosaurs behaved from just their fossilised bones might seem like science fiction but is very much science fact. Join me for a double review of two recent illustrated books. I will next review An Illustrated Guide to Dinosaur Feeding Biology but first up is Dinosaur Behavior: An Illustrated Guide. Here, veteran palaeontology professor Michael J. Benton joins forces with palaeoartist Bob Nicholls to do what it says on the tin: write a richly illustrated introductory book on dinosaur behaviour that is well-suited for novices.

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Book review – A Dog’s World: Imagining the Lives of Dogs in a World without Humans

7-minute read
keywords: ethology, evolutionary biology, zoology

At first blush, the question behind A Dog’s World could have been lifted straight from the pages of What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by xkcd creator Randall Munroe. What would happen to our dogs if we disappeared overnight? Far from being mere whimsy or idle academic speculation, A Dog’s World is a serious attempt to scientifically answer this thought experiment. There is also a strong ethical component to it as the authors apply their ideas to the here and now: how can we create better lives for dogs today?

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Book review – The Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy: What Animals on Earth Reveal about Aliens – and Ourselves

6-minute read

Can we predict what aliens will look like? On some level, no, which has given science fiction writers the liberty to let their imagination run wild. On another level, yes, writes zoologist Arik Kershenbaum. But we need to stop focusing on form and start focusing on function. There are universal laws of biology that help us understand why life is the way it is, and they are the subject of this book. If you are concerned that consideration of life’s most fundamental properties will make for a dense read, don’t panic, The Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy is a spine-tingling dive into astrobiology that I could not put down.

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Book review – Dinosaurs Without Bones: Dinosaur Lives Revealed by Their Trace Fossils

6-minute read

Say “dinosaurs”, and most people imagine fossilised bones and spectacular museum displays. But body fossils are not the only remains we have with which to reconstruct dinosaur lives. Nor, and this might sound controversial, are they the most important. Or so argues palaeontologist, geologist, and ichnologist Anthony J. Martin. Ichnology is the study of animal traces, whether modern or fossilised. Most traces are ephemeral and disappear within hours or days, but occasionally some are buried and end up in the fossil record. With tongue firmly planted in cheek, and with more puns than you can shake a T. rex thigh bone at, Martin forays into the rich dinosaur trace fossil record: from footprints, burrows, and nests, to teeth marks and fossil faeces. For all the jokes, and despite having been published in 2014, he raises some really interesting points.

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Book review – Locked in Time: Animal Behavior Unearthed in 50 Extraordinary Fossils

7-minute read

Fossils can tell us what animals living in the distant past looked like. Over the centuries, palaeontologists have made incredible strides in reconstructing extinct life forms, helped along by cumulative experience, technological advances, and a steadily increasing body of rare but truly exceptionally preserved fossils. But reconstructing their behaviour—surely that is all just speculative? In Locked in Time, palaeontologist and science communicator Dean R. Lomax, with the able help of palaeoartist Bob Nicholls, presents fifty of the most exceptional fossils that preserve evidence of past behaviour: from pregnant plesiosaurs to a pterosaur pierced by a predatory fish. I was eagerly awaiting this book from the moment it was announced, but I was still caught off-guard by some of the astonishing fossil discoveries featured here.

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Book review – Yellowstone Wolves: Science and Discovery in the World’s First National Park

7-minute read

The reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park is one of the best-known examples of wildlife conservation. To celebrate its 25th anniversary and summarise the many lessons learned, Yellowstone Wolf Project leaders Douglas W. Smith and Daniel R. Stahler, together with wildlife ecologist Daniel R. MacNulty, bring together research from over 70 colleagues in this large, edited collection. The combination of academic content, excellent photography, guest essays, and an online bonus documentary with interviews make this the go-to reference work for anyone wanting to go beyond the headlines on this reintroduction project.

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Book review – The Sediments of Time: My Lifelong Search for the Past

6-minute read

In the field of palaeoanthropology, one name keeps turning up: the Leakey dynasty. Since Louis Leakey’s first excavations in 1926, three generations of this family have been involved in anthropological research in East Africa. In this captivating memoir, Meave, a second-generation Leakey, reflects on a lifetime of fieldwork and research and provides an inspirational blueprint for what women can achieve in science.

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