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https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/22/books/review-immense-world-animal-senses-ed-yong.html>
"A dolphin that echolocates a human in water can perceive not only the human’s
outer shape but also what’s inside, including skeleton and lungs. Tree frog
embryos — ensconced inside their unhatched eggs — can detect the vibrations of
an attacking predator and release an enzyme from their faces that dissolves the
casings that house them, allowing them to exit and escape.
That I found myself surprised at so many moments while reading “An Immense
World,” Ed Yong’s new book about animal senses, speaks to his exceptional gifts
as a storyteller — though perhaps it also says something regrettable about me.
I was marveling at those details because I found them weird; but it turns out,
if I try to expand my perspective just a bit, they aren’t so weird after all.
One of Yong’s themes is that much of what we think of as “extrasensory” is
“simply sensory.” A term like “ultrasound” is “an anthropocentric affectation.”
The upper frequency limit for the average human ear may be a measly 20
kilohertz, but most mammals can hear well into the ultrasound range.
Yong offers these facts in a generous spirit, clearly aware that part of what
will enthrall readers is discovering just how few of these facts many of us
have known. I would have called the book “illuminating,” but Yong made me
realize how much bias is baked into an adjective like this; humans, as a
species, are “so relentlessly visual” that light for us has “come to symbolize
safety, progress, knowledge, hope and good” — and so we have illuminated the
planet to make it a more comfortable place for us, while making it less
inhabitable for others. Artificial lights have been a fatal attraction for sea
turtle hatchlings, migrating songbirds and some insects, steering them toward
predators or disorienting them to the point of exhaustion.
Understanding this requires us to stretch the boundaries of our own “unique
sensory bubble” in order to glean what we can of how other species experience
their surroundings. Yong’s book is funny and elegantly written, mercifully
restrained when it comes to jargon, though he does introduce a helpful German
word that he uses throughout:
Umwelt. It means “environment,” but a little
more than a century ago the Baltic German zoologist Jakob von Uexküll used it
to refer more specifically to that sensory bubble — an animal’s perceptual
world."
Via Bill Daul.
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
