acoustic ecology

Book review – The Voices of Nature: How and Why Animals Communicate

8-minute read
keywords: ethology

On account of our good eyesight, humans are said to be a visual species. However, when you stop and think about it, human language (at least English) has a surprisingly large vocabulary for the squawks, grunts, chirps, honks, growls, etc. that other animals make. What, if anything, are they saying? Two recent books delve into this question, The Voices of Nature and Why Animals Talk. A last-minute entry on human language, Talking Heads, turns this into a three-part review. In other words, we need to talk…

(more…)