Foraging is fundamental to animal survival and reproduction, yet it is much more than a simple matter of finding food; it is a biological imperative. Animals must find and consume resources to succeed, and they make extraordinary efforts to do so. For instance, pythons rarely eat, but when they do, their meals are large--as much as 60 percent larger than their own bodies. The snake's digestive system is normally dormant, but during digestion metabolic rates can increase fortyfold. A python digesting quietly on the forest floor has the metabolic rate of thoroughbred in a dead heat. This and related foraging processes have broad applications in ecology, cognitive science, anthropology, and conservation biology--and they can be further extrapolated in economics, neurobiology, and computer science.
"Foraging "is the first comprehensive review of the topic in more than twenty years. A monumental undertaking, this volume brings together twenty-two experts from throughout the field to offer the latest on the mechanics of foraging, modern foraging theory, and foraging ecology. The fourteen essays cover all the relevant issues, including cognition, individual behavior, caching behavior, parental behavior, antipredator behavior, social behavior, population and community ecology, herbivory, and conservation. Considering a wide range of taxa, from birds to mammals to amphibians, "Foraging" will be the definitive guide to the field.

"Cheetahs of the Serengeti Plains" is the most comprehensive account of carnivore social behavior to date. Synthesizing more than a decade of research in the wild, this book offers a detailed account of the behavior and ecology of cheetahs. Compared with other large cats, and other mammals, cheetahs have an unusual breeding system; whereas lions live in prides and tigers are solitary, some cheetahs live in groups while others live by themselves. Tim Caro explores group and solitary living among cheetahs and discovers that the causes of social behavior vary dramatically, even within a single species.
Why do cheetah cubs stay with their mother for a full year after weaning? Why do adolescents remain in groups? Why do adult males live in permanent associations with each other? Why do adult females live alone? Through observations on the costs and benefits of group living, Caro offers new insight into the complex behavior of this extraordinary species. For example, contrary to common belief about cooperative hunting in large carnivores, he shows that neither adolescents nor adult males benefit from hunting in groups.
With many surprising findings, and through comparisons with other cat species, Caro enriches our understanding of the evolution of social behavior and offers new perspectives on conservation efforts to save this charismatic and endangered carnivore.

In this first comprehensive synthesis of the literature on food hoarding in animals, Stephen B. Vander Wall discusses how animals store food, how they use food and how this use affects individual fitness, why and how food hoarding evolved, how cached food is lost, mechanisms for protecting and recovering cached food, physiological and behavioral factors that influence hoarding, and the impact that hoarding animals have on plant populations and plant dispersal. He then provides detailed coverage of hoarding behavior across taxa--mammals, birds, and arthropods--to address issues in evolution, ecology, and behavior.
Drawings, photographs, and appendixes document complex and intrinsically interesting food-hoarding behaviors, and the bibliography of nearly 1,500 sources is itself an invaluable and unique reference.

How do animals communicate using sounds? How did animal vocal communication arise and evolve? Exploring a new way to conceptualize animal communication, this new edition moves beyond an earlier emphasis on the role of senders in managing receiver behaviour, to examine how receivers' responses influence signalling. It demonstrates the importance of the perceiver role in driving the evolution of communication, for instance in mimicry, and thus shifts the emphasis from a linguistic to a form/function approach to communication. Covering a wide range of animals from frogs to humans, this new edition includes new sections on human prosodic elements in speech, the vocal origins of smiles and laughter and deliberately irritating sounds and is ideal for researchers and students of animal behaviour and in fields such as sensory biology, neuroscience and evolutionary biology.

Tracking is a much-loved, yet difficult, subject that attracts at least some of the attention of almost every bush-goer who ventures into the wild places of southern Africa. The ability to accurately read difficult, partial or little-seen signs left in the soil or sand is rare and largely the domain of professionals. However, by making use of a comprehensive guide, anyone who applies him- or herself can begin to decipher these natural hieroglyphs etched on the ground. In this volume, Louis Liebenberg's highly accurate sketches of animal tracks, showing all the details one would find in a perfect example of the spoor, are combined with a wide selection of extremely varied photographs that explain the difficult truth of the matter, and represent what you are most likely to actually see in the many different substrates where the animals walk. This field guide to mammal tracks and signs also serves as an ID guide to the mammals of southern Africa as full colour photographs of each animal are included.

In this book, the authors gather and present current research in the study of the behaviour, classification and diseases relating to the feline species. Topics discussed in this compilation include the use of Type 1 interferon for treating feline retrovirosis; new advances in the diagnosis, epizootiology and taxonomy of feline piroplasmids; feline hepatozoonosis and the resurrection of hepatozoon felis; the role of cats in toxoplasma gondii infection; and the therapeutic effect of melatonin in feline uveitis.

Masson begins by asking if we ever know precisely what another person is actually feeling. It may be no harder, he argues, to discover the truth about feelings in dogs. Yet for all their evident loyalty, heroism and compassion, Masson highlights research which shows that dogs lie in a universe of scent a hundred million times more acutely appreciated than by man. It is a world of emotions readily available only to other dogs. To discover more about the complex but transparent nature of canine emotional responses, Masson acquired three large dogs to from a community with his own family and set about a close scrutiny of their feelings - the first, he says since Charles Darwin pointed us in the right direction 125 years ago.

Darwin's work of 1872 still provides the point of departure for research in the theory of emotion and expression. Although he lacked the modern research tool of cybernetics, his basic methods have not been improved upon: the study of infants, of the insane, of paintings and sculpture, of some of the commoner animals; the use of photographs of expression submitted to different judges; and the comparative study of expression among different peoples. This new edition will be warmly welcomed by those behavioral scientists who have recently shown an intense interest in the scientific study of expression. Lay readers, too, will be struck by the freshness and directness of this book, which includes, among other data, Darwin's delightfully objective analysis of his own baby's smiles and pouts.

Primatology draws on theory and methods from diverse fields, including anatomy, anthropology, biology, ecology, medicine, psychology, veterinary sciences and zoology. The more than 500 species of primate range from tiny mouse lemurs to huge gorillas, and primatologists collect data in a variety of environments including in the field, research facilities, museums, sanctuaries, zoos, and from the literature. The variability in research interests, study animals and research sites means that there are no standard protocols for how to study primates. Nevertheless, asking good questions and designing appropriate studies to answer them are vital to produce high quality science. This accessible guide for graduate students and post-doctoral researchers explains how to develop a research question, formulate testable hypotheses and predictions, design and conduct a project and report the results. The focus is on research integrity and ethics throughout, and the book provides practical advice on overcoming common difficulties researchers face.

The size and composition of primate groups varies tremendously across species, within species, and within groups over time. Written by leading authorities, this book focuses on the causes and consequences of variation in the number of males per group. This variation lies at the heart of understanding adaptive variation among primate social systems. The volume also provides an extensive overview of variation in group composition across all major primate taxa using up-to-date reviews, case studies, evolutionary theory, and theoretical models. A comparative review of birds and selected other mammals is included. This text will become a favorite with all those interested in the behavioral ecology of primates.

Essays discuss migration, courtship, the care of young, camouflage, hunting techniques, and symbiotic relationships.

In this ambitious and unusual work, evolutionary biologist Gordon H Orians explores the role of evolution in human responses to the environment, beginning with why we have emotions and ending with evolutionary approaches to aesthetics. Orians reveals how our emotional lives today are shaped by decisions our ancestors made centuries ago on African savannas as they selected places to live, sought food and safety, and socialized in small hunter-gatherer groups. During this time our likes and dislikes became wired in our brains, as the appropriate responses to the environment meant the difference between survival or death. His rich analysis explains why we mimic the tropical savannas of our ancestors in our parks and gardens, why we are simultaneously attracted to danger and approach it cautiously, and how paying close attention to nature's sounds has resulted in us being an unusually musical species. We also learn why we have developed discriminating palates for wine, and why we have strong reactions to some odors, and why we enjoy classifying almost everything.

Bears have fascinated people since ancient times. The relationship between bears and humans dates back thousands of years, during which time we have also competed with bears for shelter and food. In modern times, bears have come under pressure through encroachment on their habitats, climate change, and illegal trade in their body parts, including the Asian bear bile market. The IUCN lists six bears as vulnerable or endangered, and even the least concern species, such as the brown bear, are at risk of extirpation in certain countries. The poaching and international trade of these most threatened populations are prohibited, but still ongoing. Covering all bears species worldwide, this beautifully illustrated volume brings together the contributions of 200 international bear experts on the ecology, conservation status, and management of the Ursidae family. It reveals the fascinating long history of interactions between humans and bears and the threats affecting these charismatic species.

'This wise and beautiful book ... bears upon every page the imprint of a profound, humane and questing mind.' - Observer

'For great interest, amusement and relaxation - in short, for unalloyed pleasurel - let nothing stop you from getting hold of a copy.' - Liverpool Post

'It is one of the best and most penetrating non-technical books about animals and animal nature that has ever been written ... every sensitive reader will agree that the book is a work of humanity, wisdom and balance as well as of delightful humour.' - W H Thorpe

What separates your mind from an animal's? Maybe you think it's your ability to design tools, your sense of self, or your grasp of past and future-all traits that have helped us define ourselves as the planet's preeminent species. But in recent decades, these claims have eroded, or even been disproven outright, by a revolution in the study of animal cognition. Take the way octopuses use coconut shells as tools; elephants that classify humans by age, gender, and language; or Ayumu, the young male chimpanzee at Kyoto University whose flash memory puts that of humans to shame. Based on research involving crows, dolphins, parrots, sheep, wasps, bats, whales, and of course chimpanzees and bonobos, Frans de Waal explores both the scope and the depth of animal intelligence. He offers a firsthand account of how science has stood traditional behaviorism on its head by revealing how smart animals really are, and how we've underestimated their abilities for too long. People often assume a cognitive ladder, from lower to higher forms, with our own intelligence at the top. But what if it is more like a bush, with cognition taking different forms that are often incomparable to ours? Would you presume yourself dumber than a squirrel because you're less adept at recalling the locations of hundreds of buried acorns? Or would you judge your perception of your surroundings as more sophisticated than that of a echolocating bat? De Waal reviews the rise and fall of the mechanistic view of animals and opens our minds to the idea that animal minds are far more intricate and complex than we have assumed. De Waal's landmark work will convince you to rethink everything you thought you knew about animal-and human-intelligence.

In social relationships-whether between mates, parents and offspring, or friends-we find much of life's meaning. But in these relationships, so critical to our well-being, might we also detect the workings, even directives, of biology? This book, a rare melding of human and animal research and theoretical and empirical science, ventures into the most interesting realms of behavioral biology to examine the intimate role of endocrinology in social relationships. The importance of hormones to reproductive behavior-from breeding cycles to male sexual display-is well known. What this book considers is the increasing evidence that hormones are just as important to social behavior. Peter Ellison and Peter Gray include the latest findings-both practical and theoretical-on the hormonal component of both casual interactions and fundamental bonds. The contributors, senior scholars and rising scientists whose work is shaping the field, go beyond the proximate mechanics of neuroendocrine physiology to integrate behavioral endocrinology with areas such as reproductive ecology and life history theory. Ranging broadly across taxa, from birds and rodents to primates, the volume pays particular attention to human endocrinology and social relationships, a focus largely missing from most works of behavioral endocrinology.

This book compares the beginning of symbolic thought in human infancy with that of our close primate relatives, the chimpanzees. The author investigates the precursors of symbolism by studying the actions and interactions of a small group of these intelligent, non-human primates who live in Singapore Zoo.

Drawing upon his years of detailed observations, Matthews offers an in-depth analysis and interpretation of chimp behaviour to present an unprecedented account of the beginnings of symbolic thought. The book shows that the actions the chimpanzees perform have structural and semantic similarities with the actions of emergent expression and representation we find in human infancy. Of great importance is the finding that chimpanzee mark-making activity is not an artefact of human interference, but part of chimpanzee culture. Young chimpanzees seem to be introduced to acts of pretence and imagination by older and more experienced ones and taught the rudiments of expression, representation and symbolism.

The implications for our understanding of symbolism, language, art and education are enormous, as are those about our origins and our place within nature. The book is written in an accessible style for both specialist and non-specialist readers, and illustrated with the author s drawings and photographs.

Societies develop as a result of the interactions of individuals as they compete and cooperate with one another in the evolutionary struggle to survive and reproduce successfully. Gorilla society is arranged according to these different and sometimes conflicting evolutionary goals of the sexes. In seeking to understand why gorilla society exists as it does, Alexander H. Harcourt and Kelly J. Stewart bring together extensive data on wild gorillas, collected over decades by numerous researchers working in diverse habitats across Africa, to illustrate how the social system of gorillas has evolved and endured.
"Gorilla Society "introduces recent theories explaining primate societies, describes gorilla life history, ecology, and social systems, and explores both sexes' evolutionary strategies of survival and reproduction. With a focus on the future, Harcourt and Stewart conclude with suggestions for future research and conservation. An exemplary work of socioecology from two of the world's best known gorilla biologists, "Gorilla Society" will be a landmark study on a par with the work of George Schaller--a synthesis of existing research on these remarkable animals and the societies in which they live.

The natural world is filled with diverse - not to mention quirky and odd - animal behaviors. Consider the male praying mantis that continues to mate after being beheaded; the spiders, insects, and birds that offer gifts of food in return for sex; the male hip-pocket frog that carries his own tadpoles; the baby spiders that dine on their mother; the beetle that craves excrement; or the starfish that sheds an arm or two to escape a predator's graps. "Headless Males Make Great Lovers and Other Unusual Natural Histories" celebrates this extraordinary world of animals with essays on curious creatures and their amazing behaviors. Marty Crump - a tropical field biologist well known for her work with the reproductive behavior of amphibians - examines here the bizarre conduct of animals as they mate, parent, feed, defend themselves, and communicate. Crump's enthusiasm for the unusual behaviors she describes - from sex change and free love in sponges to aphrodisiac concoction in bats - is visible on every page, thanks to her skilled storytelling. Steeped in biology, "Headless Males Make Great Lovers" points out that diverse and unrelated animals often share seemingly bizarre behaviors - evidence, Crump argues, that these natural histories, though outwardly weird, are successful ways of living. Illustrated throughout, "Headless Males Make Great Lovers" will enchant the general reader with its tales of blood-squirting horned lizards and intestine-ejecting sea cucumbers - all in the service of a greater appreciation of the diversity of the natural histories of animals.

When it was originally released in 1980, Jeanne Altmann's book transformed the study of maternal primate relationships by focusing on motherhood and infancy within a complex ecological and sociological context. Available again with a new foreword by the author, Baboon Mothers and Infants is a classic book that has been, in its own right, a mother to a generation of influential research and will no doubt provide further inspiration.

Are selfishness and individuality - rather than kindness and cooperation - basic to biological nature? Does a 'selfish gene' create universal sexual conflict? In "The Genial Gene", Joan Roughgarden forcefully rejects these and other ideas that have come to dominate the study of animal evolution. Building on her brilliant and innovative book "Evolution's Rainbow", in which she challenged accepted wisdom about gender identity and sexual orientation, Roughgarden upends the notion of the selfish gene and the theory of sexual selection and develops a compelling and controversial alternative theory called social selection. This scientifically rigorous, model-based challenge to an important tenet of neo-Darwinian theory emphasizes cooperation, elucidates the factors that contribute to evolutionary success in a gene pool or animal social system, and vigorously demonstrates that to identify Darwinism with selfishness and individuality misrepresents the facts of life as we now know them.

Getting from here to there may be simple for one individual. But as any parent, scout leader, or CEO knows, herding a whole troop in one direction is a lot more complicated. Who leads the group? Who decides where the group will travel, and using what information? How do they accomplish these tasks?
"On the Move" addresses these questions, examining the social, cognitive, and ecological processes that underlie patterns and strategies of group travel. Chapters discuss how factors such as group size, resource distribution and availability, the costs of travel, predation, social cohesion, and cognitive skills affect how individuals as well as social groups exploit their environment. Most chapters focus on field studies of a wide range of human and nonhuman primate groups, from squirrel monkeys to Turkana pastoralists, but chapters covering group travel in hyenas, birds, dolphins, and bees provide a broad taxonomic perspective and offer new insights into comparative questions, such as whether primates are unique in their ability to coordinate group-level activities.

Konrad Lorenz was the author of some of the most popular books ever published about animals, including the best-selling Man Meets Dog and King Solomon's Ring. On Aggression is one of his finest works, as well as the most controversial. Through an insightful and characteristically entertaining survey of animal behaviour, the Nobel Prize winner tracks the evolution of aggression throughout the animal world. He also raises some startling questions when he applies his observations of animal psychology to humankind. His conclusions caused an unprecedented controversy, culminating in a statement adopted by UNESCO in 1989 which appeared to condemn his work. Whether or not Lorenz actually claimed aggression is hard-wired into the human psyche, and that war is an inevitable result, is something readers can decide upon for themselves. However you react, there can be no doubting that in today's violent world this powerful work remains of paramount importance.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Prologue in the Sea; Chapter 2 Coral Fish in the Laboratory; Chapter 3 What Aggression is Good For; Chapter 4 The Spontaneity of Aggression; Chapter 5 Habit, Ritual and Magic; Chapter 6 The Great Parliament of Instincts; Chapter 7 Behavioural Analogies to Morality; Chapter 8 Anonymity of the Flock; Chapter 9 Social Organization without Love; Chapter 10 Rats; Chapter 11 The Bond; Chapter 12 On the Virtue of Scientific Humility; Chapter 13 Ecce Homo!; Chapter 14 Avowal of Optimism;

In "The Black-Tailed Prairie Dog," John L. Hoogland draws on sixteen years of research at Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota, in the United States to provide this account of prairie dog social behavior. Through comparisons with more than 300 other animal species, he offers new insights into basic theory in behavioral ecology and sociobiology.
Hoogland documents interactions within and among families of prairie dogs to examine the advantages and disadvantages of coloniality. By addressing such topics as male and female reproductive success, inbreeding, kin recognition, and infanticide, Hoogland offers a broad view of conflict and cooperation. Among his surprising findings is that prairie dog females sometimes suckle, and at other times kill, the offspring of close kin.
Enhanced by more than 100 photographs, this book illuminates the social organization of a burrowing mammal and raises fundamental questions about current theory. As the most detailed long-term study of any social rodent, "The Black-Tailed Prairie Dog" will interest not only mammalogists and other vertebrate biologists, but also students of behavioral and evolutionary ecology.

Quantitative genetics--the statistical study of the inheritance of traits within a population--has become an important tool for studying the evolution of behavior in the last decade. "Quantitative Genetic Studies of Behavioral Evolution" examines the theory and methods of quantitative genetics and presents case studies that illustrate the many ways in which the methods can be applied.
Christine R. B. Boake brings together current theoretical and empirical studies to show how quantitative genetics can illuminate topics as diverse as sexual selection, migration, sociality, and aggressive behavior. Nearly half of the chapters focus on conceptual issues, ranging from quantitative genetic models to the complementary roles of quantitative genetic and optimality approaches in evolutionary studies. Other chapters illustrate how to use the techniques by providing surveys of research fields, such as the evolution of mating behavior, sexual selection, migration, and size-dependent behavioral variation. The balance of the volume offers case studies of territoriality in fruit flies, cannibalism in flour beetles, mate-attractive traits in crickets, locomotor behavior and physiology in the garter snake, and cold adaptation in the house mouse. Taken together, these studies document both the benefits and pitfalls of quantitative genetics.
This book shows the advanced student and scholar of behavioral evolution and genetics the many powerful uses of quantitative genetics in behavioral research.