The Umwelten (the various sensory input modalities) available to different species are explored in detail by this D.C.-based science writer for The Atlantic. Our human limitations in sensory inputs lead us to ignore those that are used by many other species and force us to interpret their behaviour in the light of what we can perceive, to our detriment. Some humans with special abilities such as those with synestheia (crossed sensory inputs such as seeing sounds or hearing colours), usually viewed as disabilities, may be more capable of sensing the world around them as other species do. And the blind and deaf develop heightened senses of smell, touch, and position, like dogs.
Viruses, which some scientists say do not qualify as living organisms, can ‘smell’ or in some other way locate vulnerable bacteria to attack. From these to elephants and orcas, every species has developed a unique Umwelten and there is considerable variation of these sensory perception abilities between individuals within the same species, much of it genetically determined; some is from training such as dogs trained to sniff out drugs or detect some human diseases.
Most vertebrates smell odourants stereoscopically with a two-chambered nose but insects do so with feet, legs or antennae, and snakes and scorpions with a forked tongue. Catfish have taste buds scattered all over their scaleless skin. In the chapter on sight the widely different eyes (single-called bacteria can detect light) to the 10.6 diameter eye of the giant deep water squid are discussed. There is astonishing variability in acuity, visual fields, detectable wavelengths and practical uses. “ Frustrating though it may be, most of us simply cannot imagine what other animals look like to each other, or how varied their sense of color can be”, Malcolm Gladwell’S 2009 book What the Dog Saw (which has very little to do with dogs or vision) notwithstanding.
The chapter on colour perception is too detailed and technical for my simple mind to get around, with opsins, receptors, different kinds of polarization of wavelengths of light, and the different abilities of species resulting from those factors. The pugnacious mantis shrimp and the peacock shrimp with small brains but at least 11 classes of photoreceptors seem to outperform our own proportionately larger brains but only two, three, for four photoreceptors in our eyes when it comes to perception of colours.
The chapter on heat and cold is also very detailed but does not mention an unusual human aberration that I have observed. Some people with ciguatera poisoning from eating toxic tropical fish develop temporary temperature perception reversal-hot environments are perceived as cold and visa versa. An acquaintance with this showed up at work all summer wearing a parka and winter mitts. As far a l know, no neuroscientist has been able to explain this.
The age-old question of which creatures are able to feel pain is addressed in fresh terms but seems unanswerable as Young decries the strong human tendency to anthropomorphize. He distinguishes between nociception (the ability to detect harmful stimuli) and the experience of pain.
The infrasonic sounds made by whales and the ultrasonic ones of many insects and some land mammals are documented in some detail although the uses of these are often a mystery to us with our limited range of hearing frequency. The chapter on echolocation by bats outlining the ten challenges they have overcome to make it into an effective hunting tool is the best explanation of this that I have ever encountered. and whale and dolphin echolocation is equally fascinating.
Overstuffed with astounding facts about the complexities of the natural world, there is something to delight the nature lover on every page e.g. female moths and elephant cows secrete the same chemical pheromone to attract a mate. Elephants ‘listen’ with their feet to interpret horizontal vibrations of the earth as do small planthopper insects). Tactile sense, electric, magnetic and gravitational fields, and echolocation are all explored. Some blind people have learned to navigate with the aid of echolocation, like bats and dolphins. A few have even taken up mountain biking!
Among the more interesting -to me at least- having observed several barn owls- their ears are asymmetrical, the left higher than the right, allowing them to locate the direction of a sound in 3D to within two degrees.
I have a couple of negative comments. Among the hundreds of facts discussed, a few will be intuitive to many readers and could have been omitted wile others may be too complex for readers with little or no science background. Some of the most interesting bits of trivia are confined to small-print footnotes that could have been incorporated into the main body. The last two chapters urging us to reduce our sound, light and other forms of pollution , while important advice, to me sound a preachy note and I do not take sermons very seriously
Nothing in nature is as simple as it seems to us, as Hamlet reminded Horacio: “There are more things in Heaven and earth …than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Ed Young proves that truth with hundreds of examples.
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Thanks,
The Atlantic. (where I first encountered Young’s writing)
The Passionate Reader 