Dolphin's Smile: The Wonderful World of Animal Emotions

Author: Mark Bekoff
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-11-01
Features: At any time, the elderly couple Tebo and Kachina become restless if they are not in each other's sight. Kanchi is jealous of his sister and gets angry with her when she outperforms him. If someone tickles Tupil, she will giggle; she also loves to play games. Ako gets furious when scolded; once, when the counselor scolded her for not completing a task, she even threw a plastic tube at the counselor. Tebo and Kachina, Kanchi, Tupil, and Ako are, respectively, a pair of Arabian horses, a pygmy chimpanzee, a mouse, and a dolphin. In each case, their affection, jealousy, love for play, and anger, as well as their emotional expressions, are observed and reported by scientists who specialize in animal behavior. These scientists are trained not to anthropomorphize or draw hasty conclusions. In this unforgettable collection of stories, over 50 experts from fields including great apes to killifish provide compelling evidence. When many animals face situations such as losing a child, encountering enemies, choosing a mate, being deceived, punished, challenged, playing with others, or being blamed, they indeed show emotional responses, and the underlying structures of these responses may be astonishingly similar to ours. Moreover, these familiar emotions even occur in animals that are considered "unlikely," such as birds, reptiles, and fish. Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould wrote in his foreword: "The authors of this book are engaging in a 'loving quarrel' with scientific conventions... These case studies are not accidental or the result of mere luck; rather, they are the essence of perfect and enlightening details extracted from a lifetime of professional expertise... Never before has a book on this controversial topic contained the discoveries of so many outstanding researchers, including Roger and Deborah Fouts from Central Washington University, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh from Georgia State University, Cynthia Moss from the Amboseli Elephant Research Project, David Macdonald from Oxford University, and Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, the best-selling author. These scientists, with their keen observational skills and deep passion for their research subjects, provide convincing and compassionate evidence of the rich emotional lives of many animals. The Smile of a Dolphin contains 120 vivid photographs, and it is certain to captivate both science enthusiasts and animal lovers."