Why Pandas Do Handstands: And Other Curious Truths About Animals

by Augustus Brown

Overview

Did you know that...

• shark embryos can attack?
• caterpillars can tap dance?
• koalas have fingerprints almost identical to those of humans?

And, who would have guessed that...

• chimpanzees talk about food?
• male animals from hot climates make bad fathers?
• owls employ snakes as babysitters?
• rats can learn the differences between languages?
• some parasites castrate their victims?
• dogs can see moving objects up to 985 yards away?
• ants won't cross a chalk line?
• a sloth moves so slowly that fungus grows on its feet?

Astonishing new facts about animals are discovered every day. Here, gathered together in one book, are hundreds of the most fascinating, often funny, and, occasionally, just plain bizarre snippets known about animals freshly gleaned from the most up-to-date scientific observations and experiments. With chapters on every aspect of animal life — from how they communicate with one another to their highly unusual parenting practices to their lively and varied sex lives — Augustus Brown has compiled a charming, educational, and supremely entertaining book that will satisfy even the most obsessive animal lover.

So, dig in to this irresistibly entertaining and utterly engrossing inside look at the animal kingdom at its most peculiar!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781451624274
Publisher:	Free Press
Publication date:	12/01/2010
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Augustus Brown's fascination with the strange side of animal life began on the Welsh farm where he grew up surrounded by cows that could sense rain, highly combustible sheep and chickens that could be easily hypnotized. In researching this book, he drew on decades of scientific archives, books and studies, scores of zoological and biological websites and consulted leading experts in the animal science world. He lives in London with his wife and two children.

Read an Excerpt

Foreword

Generations ago, even the cleverest people used to dismiss animals as dull, uninteresting creatures — at least compared to us humans.

Mark Twain, for instance, argued that "man is the only animal that blushes, or needs to" while D. H. Lawrence called man "the only animal in the world to fear." G. K. Chesterton, glass in hand no doubt, wrote that "no animal ever invented anything so bad as drunkenness — or as good as drink."

He would have needed a stiff whiskey if he knew how wrong they all had been.

Mr. Chesterton had clearly not encountered a Scandinavian elk, blind drunk on fermented apples, or witnessed the carnage caused when a flock of berry-addled birds fly into the side of a glass tower. Nor, obviously, had Mr. Twain witnessed a sexually aroused male ostrich, its long neck burning a vivid scarlet. If he had, he would have turned bright red himself.

And Mr. Lawrence had obviously never been stung by the awesome Australian box jellyfish. If he had, he would have spent a week suffering from the hideous Irukandji syndrome, a combination of nausea, high blood pressure, and manic depression that can reduce a man to, well, a quivering jelly. If he had, he would have feared animals forever.

In their defense, all three were living in another age, a time before electron microscopes and wildlife filmmakers, the National Geographic channel and computers capable of decoding a dog's DNA.

Today, no one can look at the animal world without feeling amazed on a regular basis.

Every day, or so it seems, a scientific journal or research paper, a wildlife documentary maker, or zoologist is delivering some new discovery or insight. Thevariety, unpredictability, and pure strangeness of the facts they come up with are endless — and endlessly fascinating: cows produce more milk to the sound of Beethoven; male mice serenade their sweethearts; penguins can fire their feces like cannons; lobsters behave like mobsters; elephants can imitate the sound of passing trucks. Animal life, clearly, is anything but dull.

This book is an assembly of some of the curious, the bizarre, and the sometimes barely credible things we now know about animals.

As will be obvious from the beginning, this is a collection intended to inform and educate, but, above all, to entertain. So, while I have been scrupulous in providing source references and have endeavored to maintain scientific accuracy at every turn, I have not let pedantry get in the way of the sense of fun and wonder that, I hope, lies at the book's heart.

To have done so would have been to risk making animals uninteresting to another generation. And that simply wouldn't do.

— Augustus Brown, London, 2006

Copyright © 2006 by Augustus Brown

Table of Contents

Contents

Foreword

Part One Talk to the Animals: The Curious Art of Animal Communication

Body Talk: How Animals Use Their Anatomies to Communicate

Vocal Heroes: Birds, Whales, and Other Singing Stars

The Anthills Are Alive: How Animals Buzz, Bang, Bounce, and Rap

Hot Gossip: What Animals Talk About

The Power of Speech: Animals with Spectacular Voices

The Joy of Rex: How Dogs and Other Animals Show They're Happy

Dress Code: What Animals Wear, and What It Tells Other Animals About Them

Part Two: Creature Comforts: Food and Drink in the Animal Kingdom

You Are Who You Eat: Who's Eating Who in the Animal World

Acquired Tastes: Some Animal Likes and Dislikes

Eating Disorders: How Some Animals Starve and Others Binge

Calls of Nature: Some Unpleasant Truths About Animal Bodily Functions

Under the Influence: Animals That Get Drunk and (Sometimes) Disorderly

Part Three: The Birds and the Bees: Animals and Their Love Lives

Looking for Mr. Right: What Animals Want in Their Ideal Partner

The Art of Seduction: How Animals Impress the Opposite Sex

The Mating Game: Sex in the Animal Kingdom

Animal Parts: Some Curious Things About Sexual Organs

Dangerous Liaisons: How Sex (or the Lack of It) Can Kill

Good Breeding: How Creatures Practice Birth Control

As Queer as Folk: Homosexuality in Animals

Till Death Do Us Part: Fidelity and Infidelity in Animals

Part Four Family Affairs: The Trials and Tribulations of Animal Parenthood

When the Stork Comes: A Few Odd FactsAbout Animal Reproduction

Maternal Instincts: Nature's Best (and Worst) Mothers

Paternal Instincts: Nature's Best (and Worst) Fathers

Little Monsters: Troublesome Children and How Animals Cope with Them

A Death in the Family: How Animals Cope with Loss

Part Five: A Matter of Life and Death: How the Fittest, Strongest, Smartest, and Downright Nastiest Survive

No Holds Barred: How Animals Fight

Natural Born Killers: Nature's Ultimate Hitmen

"I've Got You, I'm Under Your Skin": How Parasites Kill Their Prey

Liquids of Mass Destruction: Deadly Weapons from the Animal Armory

David 1, Goliath 0: A Few of Nature's Mismatches

The Escape Artists: Nature's Great Survivors

And the Oscar Goes to...: How Animals Act Their Way Out of Trouble

Part Six: Work, Rest, and Play: Animal Lifestyles

Six (or Eight) Feet Under: Some Animal Occupations

Workers of the World: Nature's Jack-of-All-Trades

Skilled Labor: Animals That Use Tools

No Place Like Home: How Animals Find Their Domestic Bliss

Beauty and the Beasts: Health, Hygiene, and Beauty in the Animal World

Rip Van Winkles: How Animals Get Their Heads Down

Moose Surf, Dragons Play Frisbee: How Animals Get Stressed, and How They Unwind

Part Seven: Social Animal: How Creatures Live Together

All for One, and One for All: How Animals Look Out for Each Other

Government, for the Animals, by the Animals: Politics, Power, and Police States

Codfathers: How Animals Behave Like the Mafia

It's a Woman's World: How the "Weaker" Sex Runs the Ultimate Matriarchal Societies

Part Eight: Not-So-Dumb Animals: Why Creatures Are More Intelligent Than You Think

Two Bees or Not Two Bees? Animals That Can Put Two and Two Together

I Remember Ewe: Why Elephants Aren't the Only Animals Who Don't Forget

Knock, Knock, Who's Bear? The Cunning (and Criminal) Workings of the Animal Mind

Part Nine: Basic Instincts: Extraordinary Animal Powers

Hear All Evil: How Animals See, Smell, Hear, and Echolocate

Southpaws: How Some Animals Lead with Their Left

Animal Doctors: How Creatures Can Heal Themselves (and Others)

Unearthly Powers: How Animals Use Their Sixth Sense

Part Ten: Do the Locomotion: How Animals Get from A to B

Poetry in Motion: Nature's Greatest Movers

Globe-Trotters: Long-Distance Animals

Are We There Yet? Some Poor Animal Travelers

Part Eleven: Children of the Evolution: Nature's Successes and Failures

Design Classics: Mother Nature's Greatest Hits

Creatures Great and Small: Some of Nature's Davids and Goliaths

Design Disasters: Mother Nature's Greatest Misses

Afterword

Sources and References

Author's Note and Acknowledgments