Why Animals Talk
The New Science of Animal Communication
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Narrated by:
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John Hastings
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By:
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Arik Kershenbaum
About this listen
"Animal communication doesn’t need to resemble human language to be full of meaning and nuance. Arik Kershenbaum delivers an expert overview of the astonishing discoveries made in the last few decades" —Frans de Waal
From leading zoologist Arik Kershenbaum, a delightful and groundbreaking exploration of animal communication and its true meaning
Animal communication has forever seemed intelligible. We are surrounded by animals and the cacophony of sounds that they make—from the chirping of songbirds to the growls of lions on the savanna—but we have yet to fully understand why animals communicate the way they do. What are they saying? This is only part of the mystery. To go deeper, we must also ask, what is motivating them?
Why Animals Talk is an exhilarating journey through the untamed world of animal communication. Following his international bestseller, The Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy, acclaimed zoologist Arik Kershenbaum draws on extensive original research to reveal how many of the animal kingdom’s most seemingly confusing or untranslatable signals are in fact logical and consistent—and not that different from our own. His fascinating deep dive into this timeless subject overturns decades of conventional wisdom, inviting listeners to experience for the first time communication through the minds of animals themselves.
From the majestic howls of wolves and the enchanting chatter of parrots to the melodic clicks of dolphins and the spirited grunts of chimpanzees, these often strange expressions are far from mere noise. In fact, they hold secrets that we are just beginning to decipher. It’s one of the oldest mysteries that has haunted Homo sapiens for hundreds of thousands of years: Are animals talking just like us, or are we the only animals on the planet to have our own language?
* This audiobook edition contains a downloadable PDF with charts and pictures.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2024 Arik Kershenbaum (P)2024 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“Animal communication doesn’t need to resemble human language to be full of meaning and nuance. Arik Kershenbaum delivers an expert overview of the astonishing discoveries made in the last few decades.” —Frans de Waal, author of Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?
“Arik Kershenbaum takes you into a world of changes in tone and sound that enable animals to communicate emotion, their individual identity, and needs. The world of sound is highly complex.” —Temple Grandin, author of Animals Make Us Human and Visual Thinking
“Talking isn’t just a human thing, and many animals communicate in sophisticated ways with sounds and melodies. In Why Animals Talk, Zoologist and science writer Arik Kershenbaum immerses us in the soundscapes of animal life. In the howls of wolves and clicks of dolphins, Kershenbaum helps us perceive how other animals sense their worlds, and in doing so, explores the evolutionary roots of our own advanced language skills. It is fitting that a book about communication is so conversational and engaging, and it will give you a new perspective on the richness of nature.” —Steve Brusatte, author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs
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Excited to See Scientific Rigor Applied to This Vital Topic
- By Mav on 08-27-24
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Life Lessons from a Parasite
- What Tapeworms, Flukes, Lice, and Roundworms Can Teach Us About Humanity's Most Difficult Problems
- By: John Janovy Jr.
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Though you may not be able to see them with the naked eye, parasites inhabit our everyday lives. From headlice to bird droppings, litterboxes to unfiltered water, you have brushed up against the most common way of life on our planet. In this unique book, John Janovy Jr., one of the world's preeminent experts on parasites, reveals what can humans learn from the most reviled yet misunderstood animals on Earth: lice, tapeworms, flukes, and maggots that can eat a lizard from the inside, and how these lessons help us negotiate our own complicated world.
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Disappointed in double agenda.
- By Michael S Derry Jr on 09-17-24
By: John Janovy Jr.
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The Zoologist's Guide to the Galaxy
- What Animals on Earth Reveal About Aliens - and Ourselves
- By: Arik Kershenbaum
- Narrated by: Samuel West
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Scientists are confident that life exists elsewhere in the universe. Yet rather than taking a realistic approach to what aliens might be like, we imagine that life on other planets is the stuff of science fiction. The time has come to abandon our fantasies of space invaders and movie monsters and place our expectations on solid scientific footing. But short of alien's landing in New York City, how do we know what they are like?
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A zoologist looks at what aliens we might meet
- By Elisabeth Carey on 04-06-21
By: Arik Kershenbaum
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Turning to Stone
- Discovering the Subtle Wisdom of Rocks
- By: Marcia Bjornerud
- Narrated by: Rebecca Stern
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Earth has been reinventing itself for more than four billion years, keeping a record of its experiments in the form of rocks. Yet most of us live our lives on the planet with no idea of its extraordinary history, unable to interpret the language of the rocks that surround us. Geologist Marcia Bjornerud believes that our lives can be enriched by understanding our heritage on this old and creative planet. Contrary to their reputation, rocks have eventful lives—and they intersect with our own in surprising ways.
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Very unusual book by a profound writer
- By F Shaw on 09-17-24
By: Marcia Bjornerud
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The Emotional Lives of Animals (Revised Edition)
- A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy—and Why They Matter
- By: Marc Bekoff, Jane Goodall - foreword
- Narrated by: Kane Stewart
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Bekoff is recognized as a preeminent voice in the media for animal sentience and dog behavior, with high-profile appearances in Time, Life, the New York Times, New Scientist, and BBC Wildlife and on Good Morning America, 60 Minutes, and 20/20, among others.
By: Marc Bekoff, and others
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Bite
- An Incisive History of Teeth, from Hagfish to Humans
- By: Bill Schutt
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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In Bite, zoologist Bill Schutt makes a surprising case: it is teeth that are responsible for the long-term success of vertebrates. The appearance of teeth, roughly half a billion years ago, was an adaptation that allowed animals with backbones, such as fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, dinosaurs and mammals—including us—to chow down in pretty much every conceivable environment.
By: Bill Schutt
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Lucid Dying
- The New Science Revolutionizing How We Understand Life and Death
- By: Sam Parnia MD PhD
- Narrated by: Brian Nishii
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Today, for the first time in history, the scientific exploration of death and what happens when we die is real, active and ongoing. Contrary to popular perceptions, this subject is no longer the remit of philosophy, religion, or personal opinion. Truly remarkable scientific discoveries that will fundamentally affect everyone’s lives now and in the future are taking place, yet very few people are aware of them. Most people—including scientists and doctors—maintain strong beliefs about death and its experience. Those beliefs are rooted in traditional, and often cultural, notions of death.
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Excited to See Scientific Rigor Applied to This Vital Topic
- By Mav on 08-27-24
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Living on Earth
- Forests, Corals, Consciousness, and the Making of the World
- By: Peter Godfrey-Smith
- Narrated by: Mitch Riley, Peter Godfrey-Smith
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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If the history of the Earth were compressed down to a year, our species would arise in the last thirty minutes or so of the final hour. But life itself is not such a late arrival: It has existed on Earth for something like 3.7 billion years—most of our planet’s history and over a quarter of the age of the universe (as far as we can tell). What have these organisms—bacteria, animals, plants, and the rest—done in all this time? In Living on Earth, the philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith proposes a new way of understanding how the actions of living beings have shaped our planet.
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Life as No One Knows It
- The Physics of Life's Emergence
- By: Sara Imari Walker
- Narrated by: Sara Imari Walker
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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What is life? This is among the most difficult open problems in science, right up there with the nature of consciousness and the existence of matter. All the definitions we have fall short. None help us understand how life originates or the full range of possibilities for what life on other planets might look like. In Life as No One Knows It, physicist and astrobiologist Sara Imari Walker argues that solving the origin of life requires radical new thinking and an experimentally testable theory for what life is.
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very interesting
- By Sequoia Spencer on 08-09-24
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Should We Go Extinct?
- A Philosophical Dilemma for Our Unbearable Times
- By: Todd May, Michael Schur
- Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins, Michael Schur
- Length: 4 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Should we bring new humans into the world? Or would it be better off without us? A renowned philosopher and advisor to NBC’s The Good Place offers a thoughtful exploration of humanity’s future—or lack thereof.
By: Todd May, and others
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Reading the Rocks
- The Autobiography of the Earth
- By: Marcia Bjornerud
- Narrated by: Alma Cuervo
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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To many of us, the Earth's crust is a relic of ancient, unknowable history. But to a geologist, stones are richly illustrated narratives, telling gothic tales of cataclysm and reincarnation. For more than four billion years, in beach sand, granite, and garnet schists, the planet has kept a rich and idiosyncratic journal of its past. Fulbright Scholar Marcia Bjornerud takes the listener along on an eye-opening tour of Deep Time, explaining in elegant prose what we see and feel beneath our feet.
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More like a whiny sermon.
- By Keith on 10-09-24
By: Marcia Bjornerud
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The Secret Life of the Universe
- An Astrobiologist's Search for the Origins and Frontiers of Life
- By: Nathalie A. Cabrol
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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We are living in a golden age in astronomy and in the search for life the universe. Over the last few decades, space exploration has shown that not only are there habitable environments within our solar system, but there are millions of exoplanets within our galaxy that could support life. We are on the cusp of breakthroughs that will revolutionize our understanding of our place in the cosmos in. In The Secret Life of the Universe, astrobiologist and the director of the Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institute Nathalie A. Cabrol takes us to the frontiers of the search for life.
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Incredible Book
- By Dennis T. on 09-20-24
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Human Rights, Robot Wrongs
- Being Human in the Age of AI
- By: Susie Alegre
- Narrated by: Susie Alegre
- Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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No longer an uncertain technology of the distant future, artificial intelligence is starting to shape every aspect of our daily lives, from how we think to who we love. In this urgent polemic, leading barrister Susie Alegre explores the ways in which artificial intelligence threatens our fundamental human rights—including the rights to life, liberty and fair trial; the right to private and family life; and the right to free expression—and how we protect those rights.
By: Susie Alegre
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African American History: From the African Coast to the Civil War
- By: Leslie Alexander, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Leslie Alexander
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Original Recording
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Owing to the legacy of slavery, African Americans have faced significant obstacles to obtaining the fundamental rights of freedom and citizenship. The consistent struggle among African Americans to gain their human rights live at the heart of the American experiment in democracy. In the 24 compelling lectures of African American History: From the African Coast to the Civil War, take a penetrating look at the experience of African Americans in the colonial and antebellum eras
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Most important but least know history
- By John D. Murphy on 11-17-24
By: Leslie Alexander, and others
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The Wisdom of Sheep
- Observations from a Family Farm
- By: Rosamund Young
- Narrated by: Rosamund Young
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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We talk a lot about sheep: following the herd, counting sheep to fall asleep and looking out for wolves in sheep’s clothing. But, just like people, animals don’t always follow the pack. Some are affectionate while others butt heads; some follow the leader while some guide the whole flock home. With startling beauty and tenderness, Rosamund Young reveals the remarkable emotional and intellectual complexity of the animals she lives with on her family farm, and the story of her life’s work, with the intimacy of a personal diary.
By: Rosamund Young
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McMillions
- By: James Lee Hernandez, Brian Lazarte
- Narrated by: Brian Lazarte, James Lee Hernandez
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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In March of 2001, Federal prosecutor Mark Devereaux cold-called Rob Holm, the head of security for McDonald's Corporation. Without explanation, Devereaux asked that Holm and several other McDonald's senior executives plan a visit to the Jacksonville, Florida, FBI, and tell no one about their intended destination. It wasn't up for discussion. Upon their arrival, Devereaux watched them closely, looking at body language, checking for tells. To him, they were all potential suspects.
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Sounds like a tin can recording
- By charlie tuna III on 08-19-24
By: James Lee Hernandez, and others
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Dogland
- Passion, Glory, and Lots of Slobber at the Westminster Dog Show
- By: Tommy Tomlinson
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Tommy Tomlinson was watching a dog show on television a few years ago when he had a sudden thought: Are those dogs happy? How about pet dogs—are they happy? Those questions sparked a quest to venture inside the dog-show world, in search of a deeper understanding of the longtime relationship between dogs and humans, and here, in Dogland he shares his surprising, entertaining, and moving adventures.
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good story but mixed message
- By Kelly on 05-01-24
By: Tommy Tomlinson
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Feeding the Machine
- The Hidden Human Labor Powering A.I.
- By: Mark Graham, Callum Cant, James Muldoon
- Narrated by: Orlando Wells
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Silicon Valley has sold us the illusion that artificial intelligence is a frictionless technology that will bring wealth and prosperity to humanity. But hidden beneath this smooth surface lies the grim reality of a precarious global workforce of millions laboring under often appalling conditions to make A.I. possible. This book presents an urgent, riveting investigation of the intricate network that maintains this exploitative system, revealing the untold truth of A.I.
By: Mark Graham, and others
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Category Five
- Superstorms and the Warming Oceans That Feed Them
- By: Porter Fox
- Narrated by: Jeremy Arthur
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Here is the story of the largest storms on earth and how those storms are growing bigger and stronger. The tale of extreme weather doesn’t begin with floods, fires, or even the air that carries this change to our lives. It begins with the ocean. Oceans create weather, climate, floods, droughts, and most of the geophysical fallout of global warming. Exactly how, award-winning writer Porter Fox contends, depends on invisible ocean currents, planetary cycles just now being defined, and processes in the deep ocean that may well have already saved us from the worst effects of the climate crisis.
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Boring
- By UM on 10-21-24
By: Porter Fox