Humanimal — Ways Animals Are Like Humans
Search the web for the word Humanimal and you will find links describing all sorts of things. Some of them are: a video game, a hard rock band, several music albums, a horror movie, and a documentary. Also: a British charity, an entertainment act for hire, and the titles of several different books. One such book is Humanimal, Incredible Ways Animals Are Just Like Us!
Christopher Lloyd’s book
This children’s book, by Christopher Lloyd, draws on the work of 15 people who devoted their lives to studying animals. Among those cited are Jane Goodall (chimpanzees), Anne Innis Dagg (giraffes), and Gail Damerow (chickens).
The premise of the book, as stated by the author, is that: Most of our ideas about humans as the best, smartest, deepest-feeling creatures ever — wrong, or at least mostly. In many ways animals are astonishingly like humans.
The 48-page, 10½-by-11-inch book has three major sections: Community, Feelings, and Intelligence. Descriptions include such things as teamwork (honey bees provide one example), having fun (ravens), love (bonobos), grief (elephants), language (humpback whales), and problem solving (slime mold).
Since my work is cited to represent the ways chickens communicate with each other, I felt it would be appropriate to ask an uninvolved person to write a review. My friend Gene Morton spent some years as a researcher at the National Zoo and Conservation and Research Center. So I asked Gene to render his opinion.
Gene Morton’s Review
Humanimal — Incredible Ways Animals Are Just Like Us! introduces a younger audience (7-12?) to some amazing behaviors that might stimulate a continued interest in science. One of the book’s best qualities is its humanizing of the many individuals whose studies are reported in the book. (I do wonder why they couldn’t find a photo of Jane Goodall!)
The illustrations are simple enough to reflect the writing; it is a beautiful match. The basic format is to describe some cool behavior. Then suggest “it looks as if” it is more or less the same as some familiar human behavior. Thus the behavior illustrates how similar the animal — whether it be a chimp or a slime mold — is to us, or is humanimal. The book illustrates the concept well, using great examples, with a few exceptions.
One notable exception, in the “Love” section, is the assertion that blue-footed booby chicks take care of one another. In actuality, more often than not, the older sibling (of two eggs that hatch 6 days apart) might kill the younger. This behavior is called siblicide. Other booby species, and other groups as well, almost always engage in siblicide. If this is love, it is tough love indeed!
My biggest concern, though, is that Humanimal ignores completely any mention of evolution, the most important concept needed to understand humanimal. Even at the targeted age level, this oversight is unfortunate. For example, the glossary definition of a behavioral ecologist is “someone who studies how humans or animals behave within their communities.” It should be “someone who studies how… animal behavior evolves.”
Although the book’s emphasis on neat animal behaviors our human youngsters can relate to is laudable, it cannot quite connect them to real science without weaving evolutionary insight into the mix. Nevertheless, Humanimal is a nice book for promoting an interest in science in young people.
