books about animal cognition/intelligence
science-y books that highlight different aspects of non-human intelligence, perception, behavior and cognition! mainly books that highlight ethology and neurobiology research that i find super cool!
created by the_rags
last updated September, 2025
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You might want to check out Life In Colour by Martin Stevenās and Bitch by Lucy Cooke! I had to read them for some classes in uni and really enjoyed them!
i have seen Bitch around a lot but totally forgot about it! Lucy Cooke also wrote another book specifically on animal behavior and emotion that i actually own and also forgot about š Life in Colour sounds very interesting, An Immense World has a chapter on vision, but i would love to do more of a deep dive! optic neurons and cells are so cool
ahh i love this list!! super interesting stuff
Would I Contain Multitudes fit on this list? Or are microbes too small for this discussion? (Genuine question, I know very little on this topic, but I did read and enjoy this book many years ago.)
oh that's a great question! for the purpose of this list, i wouldn't add it because i'm focusing more on multi-cellular organisms and things that have at least some form of neuron and nervous system, aka sticking to the animal kingdom!! but microbes are so crazy and you've reminded me i need to read that book! i've been working with them a lot more for my current job and they may need to be my next bio-deep dive because i know there's some crazy stuff about their behavior in colonies.
Thanks so much for your answer, and I hope you enjoy the book when you get around to it. I remember it being a wild ride.
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