The Voices of Nature
How and Why Animals Communicate
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
Songs, barks, roars, hoots, squeals, and growls: exploring the mysteries of how animals communicate by sound
What is the meaning of a bird’s song, a baboon’s bark, an owl’s hoot, or a dolphin’s clicks? In The Voices of Nature, Nicolas Mathevon explores the mysteries of animal sound. Putting readers in the middle of animal soundscapes that range from the steamy heat of the Amazon jungle to the icy terrain of the Arctic, Mathevon reveals the amazing variety of animal vocalizations. He describes how animals use sound to express emotion, to choose a mate, to trick others, to mark their territory, to call for help, and much more. What may seem like random chirps, squawks, and cries are actually signals that, like our human words, allow animals to carry on conversations with others.
Mathevon explains how the science of bioacoustics works to decipher the ways animals make and hear sounds, what information is encoded in these sound signals, and what this information is used for in daily life. Drawing on these findings as well as observations in the wild, Mathevon describes, among many other things, how animals communicate with their offspring, how they exchange information despite ambient noise, how sound travels underwater, how birds and mammals learn to vocalize, and even how animals express emotion though sound. Finally, Mathevon asks if these vocalizations, complex and expressive as they are, amount to language.
For readers who have wondered about the meaning behind a robin’s song or cicadas’ relentless “tchik-tchik-tchik,” this book offers a listening guide for the endlessly varied concert of nature.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This illuminating debut by Mathevon, an animal behavior professor at University of Saint-Etienne, breaks down "how animals make and hear sounds, what information is encoded in their sound signals, what this information is used for in their daily lives." Mathevon delivers fascinating insights into animal communication, noting that songbirds that travel more tend to have larger repertoires, fish find coral reefs by following the "chattering, rasping, squeaking, and growling" noises of the reef's inhabitants, and mother sea lions wait to leave their pups until they learn to recognize their mother's cries. Many insects, he adds, have developed eardrums to detect the high-pitch frequencies bats use to echolocate, and some male moths will make calls that mimic bats because they cause female moths to freeze up, making it "easier for him to approach her and convince her to mate." Some of the more technical explanations will go over lay readers' heads ("Stridulation is produced when the rasp of the elytron rubs against the scraper," Mathevon writes of how crickets make noise), but the bounty of stimulating facts about animal communication more than compensates. This will change how readers hear the animals around them. Illus.
