3 New Books on the Animal Kingdom

Sloth

In this amusing and informative entry in Reaktion’s Animal series, Rauch (Dolphin), an English professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, explores the behavior, anatomy, and evolution of sloths. He explains that the earliest sloths evolved from the ancestors of “primitive anteaters” 47 million years ago and gradually increased in size, giving rise to giant ground sloths that weighed 9,000 pounds and possessed fearsome claws that some paleontologists believe were used to skewer predators in self-defense. Modern sloths’ slowness, Rauch suggests, results from the low amount of protein in their leaf-heavy diet; to compensate, they preserve energy by maintaining a low body temperate (80 ºF) and “one of the slowest metabolisms of all mammals.” Examining how human perceptions of sloths have changed over time, Rauch notes that early modern European thinkers viewed sloths as “helpless and wretched” (in the words of 18th-century naturalist Thomas Bewick) and contends that industrial cultures’ focus on productivity and efficiency has spawned a fascination with the animals—in the form of memes and T-shirts bearing their likeness—as representatives of “an enviable lethargy and indolence.” This is chock-full of trivia (sloths have more neck vertebrae than most mammals, enabling them to turn their heads 270 degrees), and the copious photos of sloths in their natural habitat delight. Animal lovers will be entranced. Photos. (Jan.)

In the Name of Sharks

In this stimulating primer, oceanographer Sarano (Oceans) reflects on diving with sharks and surveys the “scientific research on their biology and their exceptional sensory system.” Sarano recalls his most notable dives, including a 1987 voyage off the coast of Australia, where he became the first to observe that the small epaulette shark “uses its pectoral and pelvic fins as legs” to walk on the ocean floor, “a bit like a lizard.” Highlighting the diversity of the shark world, he notes that the 18-meter-long whale shark is “a hundred times the size of the dwarf lanternshark... which is only eighteen centimetres long.” Elsewhere, Sarano serves up fascinating trivia on shark reproduction (the Greenland shark only “reaches sexual maturity at around 150 years”) and “electrosensing,” or the ability to sense the electrical activity of neurons and heart muscle cells, allowing sharks to “easily detect an immobile organism buried in the sand, invisible to ordinary predators.” Sarano’s deep reverence for his subject undergirds his passionate account of how harvesting millions of sharks each year for their fins and liver oil (which is used in beauty creams) has put more than a third of all shark and ray (their close cousins) species at risk of extinction. Wide-ranging and accessible, this is worth diving into. Illus. (Jan.)

The Age of Deer: Trouble and Kinship with Our Wild Neighbors

Poet and journalist Howsare (How Is Travel a Folded Form?) serves up a poignant meditation on humanity’s relationship with deer. Examining the animal’s cultural significance throughout history, Howsare notes that medieval Europeans believed deer had magical properties (burning antlers were believed to deter snakes) and that Cherokee hunters thought an “eternal figure who represents all deer” would give them rheumatism if they didn’t perform a forgiveness ritual after killing deer. Contending that deer “embody binaries,” Howsare thoughtfully probes humanity’s contradictory treatment of them. One piece profiles a wildlife rehabilitator who takes in injured fawns reported by concerned civilians, while another recounts initiatives to cull deer populations across the U.S. because of “rage over landscape damage, disgust over pathogens, and fear over traffic accidents.” The prose is elegant (“The buck seemed to flicker between life and death right there on the leaves. He was so beautiful and whole, but so still,” Howsare writes of a deer fatally wounded by a hunter), and her lyrical musings cast her subject in a new light, as when she describes deer as “mashup-makers, remixers, [and] shape-shifters” for their skill at adapting to diverse environments: “What animal could be a more perfect emblem for our own selves? Our precarious, fluctuating state?” Readers will be enthralled. Photos. (Jan.)