The Inner Life of Animals
Ratings5
Average rating3.4
15
Ratings5
Average rating3.4
Can horses feel shame? Do deer grieve? Why do roosters deceive hens? We tend to assume that we are the only living things able to experience feelings but have you ever wondered what's going on in an animal's head? From the leafy forest floor to the inside of a bee hive, The Inner Life of Animalsopens up the animal kingdom like never before. We hear the stories of a grateful humpback whale, of a hedgehog who has nightmares, and of a magpie who commits adultery; we meet bees that plan for the future, pigs who learn their own names and crows that go tobogganing for fun. And at last we find out why wasps exist.
Reviews with the most likes.
I feel like for an ecologist they don't understand the urgency behind veganism and animal agriculture though they do mention the horrible treatment of pigs and terrible animal farming a few times. I really dislike the way there were like “Oh haha plants are alive too you know so just stopping to eat animals is not the solulu” which was just a terrible take, I mean by not eating animals you eat way less plants and consume way less water. Oh yea, this book also glances over horse riding and beekeeper practices, I don't remember even a mention to at least lessen the damage with better saddles or anything haha.
But besides this I did enjoy reading about the effed up world of the animal kingdom and their horrific habits, them killing each other. I definitely got quite a lot of facts that I haven't heard about before, but that probably also means that I should read more books like this because I severely doubt this is one of the better ones on the subject. I like that this sort of book made it to the popular science label and that it educated people that animals are sentient and feel all sorts of things although the author doesn't make the best cases or arguments for it, they are way more focused on biology and just basically how animals live their lives. Which is still a decent approach just that it's missing a lot of stuff animal rights activists know how to present way better.
This book really made me want to include more biology in my writing or perhaps create some fictional animals on my own. There's so much beauty in how horrible the animals are, they are almost just like us, ew. All these little facts I learned will haunt me now in a good way.
