Animal Aha!: Thrilling Discoveries in Wildlife Science

Swanson, Diane

ISBN 10: 1554511658 ISBN 13: 9781554511655

Publisher: Annick Press, 2009

Synopsis

Animals do some extraordinary things, but not always while people are watching. When patient and persistent scientists do make a discovery, it can change how we think about animals and ourselves.

Animal Aha! highlights a number of magnificent moments in animal science. Meet Alex, a chatterbox parrot who learned not just to mimic speech, but to communicate by talking. Alex's education is already helping some speech-delayed children learn to speak. Visit a California lab where scientists study snacking snakes. After eating, a python's heart becomes 40% larger than normal. By finding out how, scientists hope to help strengthen human hearts too.

Explore all these exciting discoveries:

Cockroaches that learn best at night

Dolphins that do basic math

Elephants that recognize their reflections

Gorillas that use tools

Each profile includes fun facts about the featured creature, thoughts from the scientists who made each discovery and amazing photographs of the animals in action. Animal Aha! will forever change your ideas of animals and how we learn from them.

About this title

About the Author:

Diane Swanson is the award-winning author of more than 70 factual books for children, including Nibbling on Einstein's Brain, a new edition of which is also available Spring 2009. She lives in Victoria, BC.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Introduction

Discover the Wonder of Wildlife

There's no doubt about it. Scientists work hard to uncover some of the amazing things that animals do. They spend thousands of hours planning experiments, making observations, spotting patterns, and analyzing results. Their efforts call for plenty of patience and loads of persistence. But that all pays off big time when they discover something new -- something no one has ever seen before. As you might imagine, finding an AHA! in research is a huge thrill.

Scientists study wildlife as large as whales and as small as insects to learn about what, how, and why critters do what they do. Some research is done in the wild to see how the animals behave in their natural homes. Other research takes place in laboratories where scientists can watch what happens in controlled experiments. Now and then, a discovery even helps us understand more about people.

This book looks at scientists who have made recent, exciting discoveries about wildlife. Their work has been reported in professional science journals, but not everyone agrees with the results. All research conclusions must be proven by other scientists studying more animals and, perhaps, taking different approaches. Sometimes conclusions change because of new observations.

The stories of the AHA! moments in wildlife science are awesome. One day, they may even inspire you to unravel animal secrets.

About this edition

• Publisher: Annick Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1554511658
• ISBN 13: 9781554511655
• Binding: Library Binding
• Number of pages: 48