In Super Fly Jonathan Balcombe explores the world of the most annoying creature, moving beyond the buzz and drone. Book Review by: Rebecca Giggs – please click here to read full article. Please click the book cover image, if you wish to purchase the book.
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Fish Are Not Office Decorations
In our fast-paced, human-centered lives, we are often oblivious to the remarkable capacities of so many animal species, like those of our underwater cousins: fish. Article: The Globe And Mail, February 09, 2019 Author: Jonathan Balcombe Website: The Globe And Mail Extract: I have spent years exploring the inner lives […]
What A Fish Knows
Do fishes think? Do they really have three-second memories? And can they recognize the humans who peer back at them from above the surface of the water?
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NPR Interview
Interview on NPR: Fishes Have Feelings Too: The Inner Lives Of Our Underwater Cousins
Book Review in Nature
What a Fish Knows: The Inner Lives of Our Underwater Cousins
Jonathan Balcombe Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2016)
ISBN: 9780374288211
More than 30,000 species of fish — about half of all vertebrates — roam global waters. And as ethologist Jonathan Balcombe notes in this engrossing study, breakthroughs are revealing sophisticated piscine behaviours.
Balcombe glides from perception and cognition to tool use, pausing at marvels such as ocular migration in flounders and the capacity of the frillfin goby (Bathygobius soporator) to memorize the topography of the intertidal zone.
Fishes Use Problem Solving and Invent Tools
While diving off the Micronesian archipelago of Pulau, evolutionary biologist Giacomo Bernardi witnessed something unusual and was lucky enough to capture it on film.
An orange-dotted tuskfish (Choerodon anchorago) uncovered a clam buried in the sand by blowing water at it, picked up the mollusk in its mouth and carried it to a large rock 30 yards away. Then, using several rapid head flicks and well-timed releases, the fish eventually cracked open the clam against the rock.
In the ensuing 20 minutes, the tuskfish ate three clams, using the same sequence of behaviors to smash them.
WNPR Interview on Seachange
Interview On: The Colin McEnroe Show (WNPRadio)
Interview On REAL
Interview of Jonathan by Caryn Hartglass on 9th June 2016 regarding his latest book, “What A Fish Knows” for REAL.
Piebald Ethics
This morning, still recovering from jetlag, I went for a bike ride as the sun rose on the suburbs north of Washington, DC.
As I cycled through one of the lovely state parks that grace my neighborhood, I spooked a small herd of deer enjoying some browse at the border of a woodland and field.
At first I thought they were accompanied by a domestic dog, until I realized I had seen a piebald white-tailed deer.