Book description
The 'Well-Dressed Ape', aka Homo sapiens, is a strange mammal. It mates
remarkably often and with unprecedented affection. With comparable
enthusiasm, it will eat to the point of undermining its own health -
unlike any other animal in the wild. The human marks its territory with
doors, fences and garden gnomes, yet if it becomes too isolated it
becomes depressed. It thinks of itself as complex, intelligent, and in
every way both different from and superior to other animals - but is it,
really? In this riveting and revealing field guide to the human animal,
Hannah Holmes surveys the evidence. She shows that monogamy is mostly
overrated: female birds that cheat on their partners have bigger brains,
and female chimps go out on the equivalent of Girls' Nights Out; that
while humans can contact each other using complex lumps of plastic,
spiders can send each other messages by plucking web strings, and some
fish communicate by clicking their teeth, or strumming body parts; and
that most animals lie - the baby baboon is notoriously devious, and
'cries wolf' to avoid its mother's wrath.
