Secret Worlds

The Extraordinary Senses of Animals

By: Martin Stevens

Narrated by: Samuel Roukin

Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

"What is it like to be a bat?", the philosopher Thomas Nagel famously asked concerning consciousness. For biologist Martin Stevens, the question forms the starting point of an exploration of animal senses. How indeed does a bat - or an owl, a bee, or a platypus - experience the world? Very differently to us humans, as we discover.

Many animals experience a world far richer in sight, sound, and smell and interact with each other in ways we simply don’t pick up, and which continue to surprise researchers. Who would imagine that rats and mice sing complex songs while courting; or that the humble dung beetle relies on light from the Milky Way above for guidance as it carries its precious cargo away from competitors? The world must show so much more colour to many birds, with four types of cones in their eyes instead of our three, and the ability to see into the ultraviolet. And that’s just considering the senses we share. What of those we have no inkling of - like the electric fields sensed by so many animals; or the magnetic maps used by migrating birds, and by sea turtles to find a current and return after many years to the shore where they hatched?

In this enthralling account, we learn not only of the wonder of animal senses, but how they work and how scientists go about investigating them. And, throughout, we consider how these senses came to be. For evolution is at the root of it all, as Stevens explains. Senses arose to enable animals to catch prey, to hide, and to mate more effectively, usually honed through fierce competition and arms races with predators. The result, over millions of years, is a wondrous panoply of ways of experiencing the world, against which our own senses often pale into insignificance.

©2021 Martin Stevens (P)2021 Recorded Books

Beyond our senses

This is an amazing audio & book by Professor Martin Stevens. This author is an expert in all things related to animal senses. He opens Secret Worlds to the listener that we are just not aware of. We are so accustomed to our 5 senses that we have no experience in the animal world and how they experience their existence. Through the use of advance scientific knowledge, Professor Stevens reveals for the first time the power of animal senses, and how they are so different from human senses. I highly recommend this audio if you are passionate about learning and experiencing the lives of all type of creatures, large and small. The narration by Samuel Roukin is top notch with highly technical terms pronounced correctly. I have listened several times just to be able to experience the power of this audio. Not being an animal person myself, due to allergies, I chose this audio due to the facts supporting evolution. The power behind convergent evolutions is here for you to experience. The most impressive senses that humans don't have such as being able to detect magnetic fields, or electrical fields come naturally to many species. The variety of nature's ability to express itself has allowed the success of the current animals the inhabit the Earth. Delve into all the standard senses, then deeper beyond our senses.