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Kraken: The Curious, Exciting, and Slightly Disturbing Science of Squid
Wendy Williams · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorParasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures
Carl Zimmer · 298 pages
A look inside the often hidden world of parasites turns the clock back to the beginning of life on Earth to answer key questions about these highly evolved and resilient life forms.
Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness
Peter Godfrey-Smith · 272 pages
"Peter Godfrey-Smith is a leading philosopher of science. He is also a scuba diver whose underwater videos of warring octopuses have attracted wide notice. In this book, he brings his parallel careers together to tell a bold new story of how nature became aware of itself. Mammals and birds are widely seen as the smartest creatures on earth. But one other branch of the tree of life has also sproute
The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness
Sy Montgomery · 261 pages
This awe striking, almost alien trip, draws us into the otherworldly watery realm of cephalopods --- except they aren't alien. Octopuses (not octopi, as the author informs) may arguably be as intelligent, as highly curious, and absolutely more dexterous than human beings. Sy Montgomery introduces us to these creatures with their fascinating and individual personalities.
What a Fish Knows: The Inner Lives of Our Underwater Cousins
Jonathan Balcombe · 296 pages
"The author of Second Nature challenges popular misconceptions to explore the complex lives of the planet's diverse fish species, drawing on the latest understandings in animal behavior and biology to reveal their self-awareness, elaborate courtship rituals and cooperative intelligence,"--NoveList.
The Book of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary
Caspar Henderson · 437 pages
The creatures that abound in Henderson's book—from the axolotl to the zebrafish—are, with one exception, very much with us, albeit sometimes in depleted numbers. *The Book of Barely Imagined Beings* transports readers to a world of real creatures that seem as if they should be made up—that are somehow more astonishing than anything we might have imagined. The yeti crab, for example, uses its furry
Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History
Bill Schutt · 350 pages
"Eating one's own kind is completely natural behavior in thousands of species, including humans. Throughout history we have engaged in cannibalism for reasons relating to famine, burial rites, and medicinal remedies. Cannibalism has been used as a form of terrorism but also as the ultimate expression of filial piety. With unexpected wit and a wealth of knowledge, Bill Schutt, a research associate
The Origin of Species
Charles Darwin · 488 pages
The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation
Matt Ridley · 295 pages
If evolution by natural selection relentlessly favors self-interest, why do human beings live in complex societies and show so much cooperative spirit? In The Origins of Virtue, Matt Ridley, a zoologist and former American editor of the Economist, shows that recent research in a number of fields has suggested a resolution of the apparent contradiction between self-interest and mutual aid. Brillia
Monkeyluv: And Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals
Robert M. Sapolsky · 216 pages
A collection of original essays by a leading neurobiologist and primatologist share the author's insights into behavioral biology, including discussion of the physiology of genes and the factors that shape human social interaction.
The Selfish Gene
Richard Dawkins · 352 pages
As influential today as when it was first published, The Selfish Gene has become a classic exposition of evolutionary thought. Professor Dawkins articulates a gene's eye view of evolution - a view giving centre stage to these persistent units of information, and in which organisms can be seen as vehicles for their replication. This imaginative, powerful, and stylistically brilliant work not only b
Venomous: How Earth's Deadliest Creatures Mastered Biochemistry
Christie Wilcox · 256 pages
Mother Nature Is Trying to Kill You: A Lively Tour Through the Dark Side of the Natural World
Dan Riskin · 272 pages
Using the seven deadly sins as a road map, Riskin offers dozens of jaw-dropping examples that illuminate how brutal nature can truly be and shows ways this deadly world has shaped us as humans and what our responsibilities are to this terrible, wonderful planet we call home.
Zoobiquity: What Animals Can Teach Us About Being Human
Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, Kathryn Bowers · 320 pages
In the tradition of Temple Grandin, Oliver Sacks, and Neil Shubin, cardiologist and psychiatrist Natterson-Horowitz and science writer Bowers look at the remarkable correspondences between the way human beings and animals live, die, get sick, and heal in their natural settings.
The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time
Jonathan Weiner · 332 pages
On a desert island in the heart of the Galapagos archipelago, where Darwin received his first inklings of the theory of evolution, two scientists, Peter and Rosemary Grant, have spent twenty years proving that Darwin did not know the strength of his own theory. For among the finches of Daphne Major, natural selection is neither rare nor slow: it is taking place by the hour, and we can watch. In
The Genius of Birds
Jennifer Ackerman · 346 pages
"Birds are astonishingly intelligent creatures. In fact, according to revolutionary new research, some birds rival primates and even humans in their remarkable forms of intelligence. Like humans, many birds have enormous brains relative to their size. Although small, bird brains are packed with neurons that allow them to punch well above their weight. In The Genius of Birds, acclaimed author Jenni
The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworm
Amy Stewart · 240 pages
Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know
Alexandra Horowitz · 352 pages
The #1 New York Times bestselling book from the author of *The Year of the Puppy* that asks what dogs know and how they think. The answers will surprise and delight you as Alexandra Horowitz, a cognitive scientist, explains how dogs perceive their daily worlds, each other, and that other quirky animal, the human. Horowitz introduces the reader to dogs’ perceptual and cognitive abilities and the
The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates
Frans de Waal · 304 pages
A renowned primatologist argues that ethical behavior witnessed in animals is the evolutionary and biological origin of human fairness and explains that morality has more to do with natural instincts than with religion.
Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software
Steven Johnson · 288 pages
"Emergence is what happens when an interconnected system of relatively simple elements self-organizes to form more intelligent, more adaptive higher-level behavior. It's a bottom-up model, rather than being engineered by a general or a master planner; emergence begins at the ground level. Systems that at first glance seem vastly different - ant colonies, human brains, cities, immune systems - all
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Yuval Noah Harari · 456 pages
From a renowned historian comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity’s creation and evolution—a #1 international bestseller—that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be “human.” One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one—homo sapiens. What hap
In the Shadow of Man
Jane Goodall · 297 pages
Goodall's classic account of primate behavior combines a landmark scientific study with a fascinating adventure story of a determined young woman's struggle in remote Africa to approach primates in the wild as no one had ever done before.
Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation
Olivia Judson · 320 pages
Do your genitals explode? Are you 200,000 times smaller than your mate? Do you drug your lover with a potion that keeps her faithful? You may not get up to such tricks, but some creatures do: sex is one of the most powerful forces in nature, and generates an astounding diversity of forms and behaviors. But why? Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation explores the science of sex, considering eve