Ashley Ward, The Social Lives of Animals (2022)

Author: Ashley Ward

Title: The Social Lives of Animals

Format: e-book

Pages: 384

Series: –

The first book of 2023, yay!

Ward’s The Social Lives of Animals delivers exactly what it promises – a highly interesting, sometimes humorous, sometimes dead serious account on the social aspects of animal lives. It’s a very good popular science book, full of fun facts and anecdotes made more engrossing by the fact that many of them were witnessed first-hand by the author. As Ward is a professor of biology, there is a certain hierarchy detectable in the storytelling, a slow journey through the animal kingdom following the growing social complexity of behaviour: from the invertebrate toward vertebrates, and among these, from fish to mammals. The natural science lens is visible in other aspects of the book, as well – Ward judiciously spices his account with more scientific terms, taking care to explain what each means and why it is important. It is a highly entertaining, educational book and while maybe a tad less jaw-dropping and more anecdotal than I expected, it’s still a great resource for those interested in animal ethology. Ward is a great storyteller and possesses a wealth of data he itches to share with everybody. His enthusiasm is palpable, as is his knowledge. There’s humour, horror, sadness and joy, and loads of fun facts about a host of animals as varied as krill, termites, humpback whales, cockroaches, gorillas and vampire bats. I, for once, will never look at tits (erm, the birds) the same way.

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