The Inner Life of Animals: Love, Grief, and Compassion—Surprising Observations of a Hidden World

I find it endlessly fascinating when I think that every species of animal may see and feel the world in a completely different way, so you could say there are hundreds of thousands of different worlds out there. And many of these worlds are waiting to be discovered, even in the latitudes where I live.

If they want to sleep, they do so while airborne. That is highly risky, of course, because sleeping birds aren’t in total control of their actions. And so they spiral upward a mile or more to increase the distance between themselves and the ground. Then they begin to glide downward, tracing a wide circle that slows their descent. Finally, they are

Depending on which studies you want to believe, the verbal content of a conversation might convey as little as 7 percent of its meaning.

We can experience joy and peace without giving anything much thought, and that is the crux of the matter: emotions have no need for intelligence. As I have stressed, emotions steer instinctive programming and therefore are vital for all species, and therefore all species experience them to a greater or lesser degree.

In the forest I manage, the lush green moss at the bottom of thick beeches is often brown and crispy dry come summer, and the little bears have absolutely no access to water. Then they fall into an extreme form of sleep. Only well-nourished tardigrades survive, and fat plays an important role. If moisture is lost too quickly, death follows; however

They rely less on sight when they hunt and more on ultrasound. They make high-pitched calls and then listen to the echo sent back by objects and potential prey. Visual camouflage doesn’t help one little bit, because the flying mammals are “seeing” with their ears. Therefore, the moths must make themselves invisible to hearing. But how do you do tha

It had to be the two of them because herd animals should not be kept alone, and the fact that only one of them could be ridden was just fine with me, because I was out of the picture

They assume that all animals that live in herds or large groups possess similar brain mechanisms, because social units function only if individuals can see things from the perspective of others in the group and feel what they are feeling.

You can only talk about war, as we use the word, to describe conflicts in species that live in large social groups. In the Central European latitudes, that means bee, wasp, and ant colonies, which mount raids like we do. If, however, an animal attacks another individual on its own, then we talk of a fight, something you can see between many male bi