Inside Animal Hearts and Minds

Bears That Count, Goats That Surf, and Other True Stories
of Animal Intelligence and Emotion

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest

As Charles Darwin suggested more than a century ago, the differences between animals and humans are “one of degree and not of kind.” Not long ago, ethologists denied that animals had emotions or true intelligence. Now, we know that rats laugh when tickled, magpies cover their “dearly departed” with greenery, female whales travel thousands of miles for annual reunions with their gal pals, ants recognize themselves in a mirror, and beetles make star maps in their minds.

In engaging text and photographs, Inside Animal Hearts and Minds: Bears That Count, Goats That Surf, and Other True Stories of Animal Intelligence and Emotion introduces readers to a broad and astonishing spectrum of animal feeling, thinking, and sentience. Learn about monkeys who understand the concept of money and use currency to shop, rats who choose friendship over food, and wild ravens who windsurf using curved pieces of tree bark as surfboards. Even language, math, and logic are no longer exclusive to humans. Signing apes invent metaphors, prairie dogs have “words” to describe intruders, parrots name their chicks, sea lions can think logically, and bears, lemurs, parrots, and other animals can “count.”

In a world where a growing body of scientific research is closing the gap between the human and nonhuman, Inside Animal Hearts and Minds invites us to change the way we view animals, the world, and our place in it.

Foreword by Jonathan Balcombe
Jonathan Balcombe is an ethologist, author, and speaker. He has published over fifty scientific papers on animal behavior and animal protection. He served as the director of Animal Sentience with the Humane Society Institute for Science and Policy and has authored numerous books, including What a Fish Knows: The Inner Lives of Our Underwater Cousins.