Here are three other options:
Dr. Eagan must approve of your choice, so you may want to choose a few books to save time.
To read additional books about animal behavior in general, try these:
Animal Behavior
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Why do birds have regional accents? Can horses learn maths? What do animals without eyes see?
Nature's Compass
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Explores how animals find their way both near home and around the globe.
Rattlesnake: Portrait of a predator
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Includes chapters on rattlesnakes in lore and religion; and as symbols.
Snakes: The evolution of mystery in nature
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This is a book about some of nature's most alluring and forbidding creatures, written by a man with an abiding passion for snakes, as well as for science, conservation, and the beauty and complexity of nature. Snakes inhabit all major ecosystems outside of the polar regions and are among the most common predators on other vertebrates. More than 2,700 species of snakes are currently recognized, place in about 420 genera and 18 families
Turtles: An extraordinary natural history 245 million years in the making
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Turtles are a species of reptile at its evolutionary zenith, with an ancient lineage stretching back over 200 million years. Under their unmistakable shells, testament to their survival, they harbor a natural history of epochal proportions. This is the engrossing story Turtles tells. The book offers a full account of the evolution, history, diversity, ecology, and behavior of the turtle, and of the problems facing these reptiles worldwide. The book describes the important role turtles play in their ecosystems, as well as the pressures put upon current populations by habitat destruction, over-collection for the pet trade, and increasing consumption for food. Accompanying Franklin's text are photographs and illustrations testifying to the colorful diversity of the 300 species of turtle known to inhabit forest, mountains, prairies, rivers, lakes, and oceans of the world--70 within the United States alone. Appendices provide contact information for turtle organizations, as well as a listing of all extant chelonians.
Invasive pythons in the United States : ecology of an introduced predator
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Most people think of pythons as giant snakes in distant tropical jungles, but Burmese pythons, which can reach lengths of over twenty feet and weigh over two hundred pounds, are now thriving in southern Florida. These natives of Asia are commonly kept as pets and presumably escaped or were released in the Everglades. Pythons are now common in this region; widespread throughout hundreds of square miles, they are breeding and appear to be expanding their range. Pythons are voracious predators that feed on a variety of native wildlife including wading birds, bobcats, white-tailed deer, and even alligators. Their presence has drawn dramatic media attention and stoked fears among the public that pythons may threaten not just native species but humans as well.
Crocodile : evolution's greatest survivor
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The crocodilian is an ancient animal whose ancestors have roamed the earth since the time of the dinosaurs. While continents drifted, ice ages thawed and once-prolific species became extinct, the crocodilian survived it all. However, many breeds of this seemingly indestructible species are now facing extinction because of human activity, intrusion into their habitats and retaliation for the threat they pose to humans.
American alligator : ancient predator in the modern world
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A natural history of the American alligator. Having survived since the Mesozoic era, alligators teetered on the brink of extinction in the 1960s. Protected by legislative intervention, today's populations are closed monitored throughout their range. Ouchley examines the lessons we have learned about urban development and energy production, and how they can still threaten the alligator and its southern wetland habitat.
Giraffe reflections
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"Provides a natural and cultural history of the world's tallest and second-biggest land animals, describing in detail their biology and behavior," with 120 stunning photographs.
The Hidden World of the Fox
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"Join British ecologist Adele Brand on a journey to discover the surprising secrets of the fabled fox, the familiar yet enigmatic creature that has adapted to the human world with astonishing--some say, unsettling--success."--Publisher's description.
Otters
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Otters are highly charismatic and popular animals of very considerable concern to conservationists worldwide; covers research and conservation for all 13 species of otter worldwide. An engaging approach to their fascinating existence, to the science needed to understand it, and to the very real threats to their survival.
Dogs: a natural history
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Author looks at dogs' wild brothers, explains how dogs were domesticated; describes a dog's development from puppyhood on; and ponders a dog's emotional life and intelligence. Book will give readers a better sense of why their pets behave as they do.
Inside of a dog : what dogs see, smell, and know
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What do dogs know? How do they think? A cognitive scientist explains how dogs perceive their daily worlds, each other, and that other quirky animal, the human.
The Behaviour of the Domestic Cat
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On feline behavior, hunting and predation, cat-human interactions, behavioral disorders due to pathologies and from misdirected natural behavior. It is the essential source of cat behavior information.
The lion in the living room : how house cats tamed us and took over the world
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Cats are incredible creatures: they can eat practically anything and live almost anywhere. Tracing their rise from prehistory to the modern cat craze, Abigail Tucker presents an adventure through history, natural science, and pop culture. Tucker investigates the way house cats have used their relationship with humans to become one of the most powerful animals on the planet.
Tigers of the World: The Science, Politics and Conservation of Panthera tigris
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Explores tiger biology, ecology, conservation, management, and the science and technology that make this possible,...bringing together the world's leading tiger experts into one volume.
The Biology of Small Mammals
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Mammalogist Joseph F. Merritt offers an engaging, in-depth discussion about a diverse array of small mammals, from the rare Kitti's hog-nosed bat of Southeast Asia to the bizarre aye-aye of Madagascar to the familiar woodchuck of North America.
The Florida manatee : biology and conservation
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Learn all about manatees a unique and endangered marine mammal.
Biology and Management of White-Tailed Deer
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The rat : a study in behavior
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Prairie dogs : communication and community in an animal society
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Authors detail their investigation into the prairie dogs' sophisticated system of barks, yips, and chirps, which, the authors argue, represents a referential communication capable of fine distinctions among predators."
The Last Elephants
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Amazing photographs of elephants accompany narratives from researchers, scientists, and conservationists celebrating elephants and calling for their preservation.
The song of the ape: understanding the languages of chimpanzees
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Documents the astonishing experiences that inspired the author's work in chimpanzee communication, the individual histories of five captive chimpanzees, and the scientific attempts to teach human language to chimps.
Baboon metaphysics : the evolution of a social mind
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Cheney and Seyfarth set up camp in Botswana's Okavango Delta, where they could intimately observe baboons and their social world. Baboons are a perfect model for such a study because they live in groups of up to 150, including a handful of males and eight or nine matrilineal families of females.
Through a Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe Through a Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe
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Jane Goodall recounts the thirty years she spent in the company of chimpanzees and describes the dynamics of a chimpanzee family.
Journey with the loon
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Explore the wonders of the Common Loon with stunning visuals, complemented by narrative that reveals the hidden life of this entrancing species.
Mind of the Raven
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By award-winning naturalist.
Crow Planet
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Vulture: The Private Life of an Unloved Bird
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Follows a year in the life of a typical North American turkey vulture.
An eternity of eagles: the human history of the most fascinating bird in the world
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Traces our relationship with eagles, from Neolithic rock art, Native American religion, Kazakh falconers, art and popular culture.
Owls
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Looks closely at how owls live their lives, and how best to recognize them.
The bird: a natural history of who birds are, where they came from, and how they live
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Explains the evolutionary origins and future prospects of birds.
The Genius of Birds
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The Bird Way: A new look at how birds talk, work, play, parent, and think
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These books are in the SF (Agriculture) call number.
Why did the chicken cross the world? : the epic saga of the bird that powers civilization
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From ancient empires to modern economics, science reporter Andrew Lawler delivers a sweeping history of the animal that has been most crucial to the spread of civilization across the globe -- the chicken. Queen Victoria was obsessed with it. Socrates' last words were about it. Charles Darwin and Louis Pasteur made their scientific breakthroughs using it. Catholic popes, African shamans, Chinese philosophers, and Muslim mystics praised it. Throughout the history of civilization, humans have embraced it in every form imaginable -- as a messenger of the gods, powerful sex symbol, gambling aid, emblem of resurrection, all-purpose medicine, handy research tool, inspiration for bravery, epitome of evil, and, of course, as the star of the world's most famous joke. Beginning with the recent discovery in Montana that the chicken's unlikely ancestor is T. rex, this book tracks the chicken from its original domestication in the jungles of Southeast Asia some 10,000 years ago to postwar America, where it became the most engineered of animals, to the uncertain future of what is now humanity's single most important source of protein. In a combination of historical sleuthing and journalistic exploration on four continents, Lawler reframes the way we feel and think about our most important animal partner -- and, by extension, all domesticated animals, and even nature itself. Lawler's narrative reveals the secrets behind the chicken's transformation from a shy jungle bird into an animal of astonishing versatility, capable of serving our species' changing needs.
Lesser Beasts: a snout-to-tail history of the humble pig
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Unlike other barnyard animals, which pull plows, give eggs or milk, or grow wool, a pig produces only one thing: meat. Incredibly efficient at converting almost any organic matter into nourishing, delectable protein, swine are nothing short of a gastronomic godsendyet their flesh is banned in many cultures, and the animals themselves are maligned as filthy, lazy brutes. As historian Mark Essig reveals in "Lesser Beasts," swine have such a bad reputation for precisely the same reasons they are so valuable as a source of food: they are intelligent, self-sufficient, and omnivorous. What's more, he argues, we ignore our historic partnership with these astonishing animals at our peril. Tracing the interplay of pig biology and human culture from Neolithic villages 10,000 years ago to modern industrial farms, Essig blends culinary and natural history to demonstrate the vast importance of the pig and the tragedy of its modern treatment at the hands of humans. Pork, Essig explains, has long been a staple of the human diet, prized in societies from Ancient Rome to dynastic China to the contemporary American South. Yet pigs ability to track down and eat a wide range of substances (some of them distinctly unpalatable to humans) and convert them into edible meat has also led people throughout history to demonize the entire species as craven and unclean. Today's unconscionable system of factory farming, Essig explains, is only the latest instance of humans taking pigs for granted, and the most recent evidence of how both pigs and people suffer when our symbiotic relationship falls out of balance. An expansive, illuminating history of one of our most vital yet unsung food animals, "Lesser Beasts" turns a spotlight on the humble creature that, perhaps more than any other, has been a mainstay of civilization since its very beginnings--whether we like it or not.
A cow's life : the surprising history of cattle and how the Black Angus came to be home on the range
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Offers an evolutionary history of the "king of cows," covering its primal ancestor, the six-thousand-pound extinct aurochs, and the Aberdeen-Angus' emigration from Scotland to the United States in the late 19th century.
Extraordinary goats : meetings with remarkable goats, caprine wonders, & horned troublemakers
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From ancient myths to pop culture to profiles of domestic breeds, "Extraordinary Goats" explores the many facets of the goat.
Sheep : small-scale sheep keeping for pleasure and profit
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Offers both neophyte and seasoned sheep keepers a wealth of information for healthy, thriving flocks.
Donkey : the mystique of Equus asinus
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This book has emerged out of our responses to donkeys: donkeys as a species and donkeys as individuals.
Llama
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Since their domestication high in the Andes, llamas have been farmed, smuggled, sacrificed, and sometimes kept around just to be petted. Cowie charts the fascinating history of llamas and their close relatives, alpacas, guanacos, and vicuñas.
Fire Ants
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A comprehensive review of the biology of this exceptionally interesting, as well as economically and environmentally important, group of insects.
Bees : a natural history
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The vital role of bees in human ecology is underlined by the estimate that every third mouthful of human food is dependent on the pollinating services of bees
The Earth Moved: on the remarkable achievements of earthworms
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Explores the impact earthworms have on the ecosystem, discussing how they improve soil, fight plant diseases, clean up pollution, and turn ordinary dirt into fertile land.
Monarchs and milkweed : a migrating butterfly, a poisonous plant, and their remarkable story of coevolution
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Monarch butterflies are one of nature's most recognizable creatures, known for their bright colors and epic annual migration from the United States and Canada to Mexico. Yet there is much more to the monarch than its distinctive presence and mythic journeying. In Monarchs and Milkweed, Anurag Agrawal presents a vivid investigation into how the monarch butterfly has evolved closely alongside the milkweed--a toxic plant named for the sticky white substance emitted when its leaves are damaged--and how this inextricable and intimate relationship has been like an arms race over the millennia, a battle of exploitation and defense between two fascinating species.
Spineless Wonders
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We humans have a word for the feeling, whether actual or imagined, that creepy invertebrates are crawling over our skin. That word is formication, and the implied sense of horror and fascination, contends Richard Conniff, is something many of us actually crave. His Spineless Wonders presents an "unabashed wallow in the joy of formication." Spineless Wonders is an engaging, sophisticated, and humorous mix of natural history and human lore. Through his journalistic assignments, Richard Conniff has been in contact with invertebrates for more than twenty years - tarantulas in the upper Amazon region, dragonflies in Arizona, squid in Florida, and flies on the rim of his beer glass. Discoveries about the extraordinary habits and idiosyncrasies of the moth, the leech, the ant, and the slime eel are opening new frontiers in the exploration of our natural universe. Spineless Wonders takes us directly to these wild and wonderful outposts to observe the hazards of being around invertebrates, the bizarre adaptions that enable them to survive in the world, and also the astonishing work they do - work that enables us to survive.
Cockroaches : ecology, behavior, and natural history
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This volume provides a detailed overview of the approximately 4,000 species within the suborder Blattaria. Beginning with a foreword by E.O. Wilson, the book then explores the natural history and behavior of cockroaches, describing their various colors, sizes, and shapes, as well as how they move on land, in water, and through the air. In addition to habitat use, diet, reproduction, and behavior, Cockroaches covers topics such as the relationship between cockroaches and microbes, termites as social cockroaches, and the ecological impact of the suborder
Spineless: The science of jellyfish and the art of growing a backbone
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The Curious Life of Krill: A conservation story from the bottom of the world
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The great white bear : a natural and unnatural history of the polar bear
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Presents an introduction to polar bears, describing the species' contradictions and resiliency and the factors that threaten its survival, from hunting to environmental losses.
In the Company of Wild Bears
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Readers should understand that they don't have to encounter grizzly bears or black bears in order to reap rich rewards. Simply knowing that bears could be present is enough to awaken our senses and give us insights that have long since died-dried up with urban life. There is substantial value in realizing that the great outdoors is, indeed, wild. Grasping this concept enables us to live life as we once lived it-vibrantly attuned to every second. And now, come join us in walking in the company of wild bears ...
Wolf Nation: the life, death, and return of wild American wolves
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"In the tradition of Peter Matthiessen's Wildlife in America or Aldo Leopold, Brenda Peterson tells the 300-year history of wild wolves in America. It is also our own history, seen through our relationship with wolves. The earliest Americans revered them. Settlers zealously exterminated them. Now, scientists, writers, and ordinary citizens are fighting to bring them back to the wild. Peterson, an eloquent voice in the battle for twenty years, makes the powerful case that without wolves, not only will our whole ecology unravel, but we'll lose much of our national soul"
Path of the puma : the remarkable resilience of the mountain lion
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During a time when most wild animals are experiencing decline in the face of development and climate change, the intrepid mountain lion -- also known as a puma, a cougar, and by many other names - has experienced reinvigoration as well as expansion of territory. What makes this cat, the fourth carnivore in the food chain -- just ahead of humans - so resilient and resourceful? And what can conservationists and wild life managers learn from them about the web of biodiversity that is in desperate need of protection? Their story is fascinating for the lessons it can afford the protection of all species in times of dire challenge and decline.
Eager : the surprising, secret life of beavers and why they matter
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"In Eager, environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb reveals that our modern idea of what a healthy landscape looks like and how it functions is wrong, distorted by the fur trade that once trapped out millions of beavers from North America's lakes and rivers. The consequences of losing beavers were profound: streams eroded, wetlands dried up, and species from salmon to swans lost vital habitat. Today, a growing coalition of 'Beaver Believers'--including scientists, ranchers, and passionate citizens--recognizes that ecosystems with beavers are far healthier, for humans and non-humans alike, than those without them. From the Nevada deserts to the Scottish highlands, Believers are now hard at work restoring these industrious rodents to their former haunts. Eager is a powerful story about one of the world's most influential species, how North America was colonized, how our landscapes have changed over the centuries, and how beavers can help us fight drought, flooding, wildfire, extinction, and the ravages of climate change. Ultimately, it's about how we can learn to coexist, harmoniously and even beneficially, with our fellow travelers on this planet"
Rodent societies : ecological & evolutionary perspective
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Rodent Societies synthesizes and integrates the current state of knowledge about the social behavior of rodents, providing ecological and evolutionary contexts for understanding their societies and highlighting emerging conservation and management strategies to preserve them. It begins with a summary of the evolution, phylogeny, and biogeography of social and nonsocial rodents, providing a historical basis for comparative analyses.
In the Company of Moose
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Wildlife biologist Victor Van Ballenberghe has studied wild moose in the field for 35 years. He gives insights into the species, their habitat and predators, and shares intimate stories about the moose he has studied for extensive periods. The beauty of these creatures, their strange grace and gentle nature, and their personalities are captured in lively text and dramatic full-color photos.--From publisher description.
