Catalog

Record Details

Catalog Search



An immense world : how animal senses reveal the hidden realms around us  Cover Image Book Book

An immense world : how animal senses reveal the hidden realms around us / Ed Yong.

Yong, Ed, (author.).

Summary:

"The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every animal is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of an immense world.This book welcomes us into a previously unfathomable dimension-the world as it is truly perceived by other animals. We encounter beetles that are drawn to fires (and fireworks), songbirds that can see the Earth's magnetic fields, and brainless jellyfish that nonetheless have complex eyes. We discover that a crocodile's scaly face is as sensitive as a lover's fingertips, that the eyes of a giant squid evolved to see sparkling whales, and that even fingernail-sized spiders can make out the craters of the moon. We meet people with unusual senses, from women who can make out extra colors to blind individuals who can navigate using reflected echoes like bats. Yong tells the stories of pivotal discoveries in the field, and also looks ahead at the many mysteries which lie unsolved"-- Provided by publisher.

Record details

  • ISBN: 9781039003903 (hardcover)
  • Physical Description: x, 449 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (chiefly colour) ; 24 cm
  • Publisher: Toronto : Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2022.

Content descriptions

General Note:
Published simultaneously in the United States by Random House.
Bibliography, etc. Note:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Subject: Animal behavior.
Neurosciences.
Perception in animals.
Physiology.
Senses and sensation.

Available copies

  • 1 of 1 copy available at Tsuga Consortium.

Holds

  • 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
Show All Copies
Location Call Number / Copy Notes Barcode Shelving Location Status Due Date
Lakeshore Branch 573.87 Yon 31681010281442 NONFIC Available -

  • Random House, Inc.
    NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

    A “thrilling” (The New York Times), “dazzling” (The Wall Street Journal) tour of the radically different ways that animals perceive the world that will fill you with wonder and forever alter your perspective, by Pulitzer Prize–winning science journalist Ed Yong

    “One of this year’s finest works of narrative nonfiction.”—Oprah Daily

    ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Time, People, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Slate, Reader’s Digest, Publishers Weekly, BookPage


    ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Globe and Mail, The New Yorker, Oprah Daily, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Smithsonian Magazine, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal


    The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. In An Immense World, Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses to encounter beetles that are drawn to fires, turtles that can track the Earth’s magnetic fields, fish that fill rivers with electrical messages, and even humans who wield sonar like bats. We discover that a crocodile’s scaly face is as sensitive as a lover’s fingertips, that the eyes of a giant squid evolved to see sparkling whales, that plants thrum with the inaudible songs of courting bugs, and that even simple scallops have complex vision. We learn what bees see in flowers, what songbirds hear in their tunes, and what dogs smell on the street. We listen to stories of pivotal discoveries in the field, while looking ahead at the many mysteries that remain unsolved. 

    Funny, rigorous, and suffused with the joy of discovery, An Immense World takes us on what Marcel Proust called “the only true voyage . . . not to visit strange lands, but to possess other eyes.”

Additional Resources