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Aesop’s Animals: The Science Behind the Fables 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

by Jo Wimpenny (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.6 out of 5 stars 50 ratings
Turns a critical eye on Aesop's Fables to ask whether there is any scientific truth to Aesop's portrayal of his animals.

Despite originating more than two-and-a-half thousand years ago, Aesop's Fables are still passed on from parent to child, and are embedded in our collective consciousness. The morals we have learned from these tales continue to inform our judgements, but have the stories also informed how we regard their animal protagonists? If so, is there any truth behind the stereotypes? Are wolves deceptive villains? Are crows insightful geniuses? And could a tortoise really beat a hare in a race?

In Aesop's Animals, zoologist Jo Wimpenny turns a critical eye to the fables to discover whether there is any scientific truth to Aesop's portrayal of the animal kingdom. She brings the tales into the twenty-first century, introducing the latest findings on some of the most fascinating branches of ethological research – the study of why animals do the things they do. In each chapter she interrogates a classic fable and a different topic – future planning, tool use, self-recognition, cooperation and deception – concluding with a verdict on the veracity of each fable's portrayal from a scientific perspective.

By sifting fact from fiction in one of the most beloved texts of our culture, Aesop's Animals explores and challenges our preconceived notions about animals, the way they behave, and the roles we both play in our shared world.
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  1. ISBN-13
    978-1472966933
  2. Edition
    1st
  3. Publisher
    Bloomsbury Sigma
  4. Accessibility
    Learn more
  5. Publication date
    2 Sept. 2021
  6. Language
    English
  7. File size
    2.5 MB
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Product description

Review

Come for the fables and stay for the behavioral research in this jam-packed but delightful collection . Aesop's Animals is both an intense and playful look at how humans - storytellers and scientists alike - consider the mysteries inside the creatures with whom we share this planet. ― Scientific American Published On: 2021-10-21

A spirited romp through modern cognitive ethology. ― Wall Street Journal

I simply couldn't put it down. The clever ways in which Wimpenny weaves in current scientific facts about topics including future planning, tool use, self-recognition, cooperation, and deception with Aesop's lessons was spellbinding. ― Psychology Today

Every once in a publisher's blue moon, along comes a book so simple and original in its concept that it verges on brilliance and 1,000 science and nature writers howl: "Why did we not think of it?" Such is Aesop's Animals by zoologist Jo Wimpenny, which does precisely what it says on the lid: it puts the anthropomorphic fables of Aesop under the electron microscope of modern science. [.] a clever cadastral survey of animal behavioural studies. ― Country Life Published On: 2021-09-13

Wimpenny pumps life into the hard science and keeps her discussions accessible, offering plenty of insight into how humans interpret the natural world. ― Publishers Weekly

Wimpenny has the knack for bringing interesting research to life with anecdotes without obscuring the more significant challenges of determining just what animals can do and what they may be thinking. ― Wellbeing International

Engaging and comprehensive, this is highly readable popular science. ― Hannah Beckerman, The Observer Published On: 2021-09-13

From the Back Cover

Despite originating over than two-and-a-half thousand years ago, Aesop's Fables are still passed on from parent to child, and are embedded in our collective consciousness. The morals we have learned from these tales continue to inform our judgements, but have the stories also informed how we regard their animal protagonists? If so, is there any truth behind the stereotypes? Are wolves deceptive villains? Are crows insightful geniuses? And could a tortoise really beat a hare in a race?

In Aesop's Animals, zoologist Jo Wimpenny turns a critical eye to the fables to discover whether there is any scientific truth to Aesop's portrayal of the animal kingdom. She brings the tales into the twenty-first century, introducing the latest findings on some of the most fascinating branches of ethological research - the study of why animals do the things they do. In each chapter she interrogates a classic fable and a different topic - future planning, tool use, self-recognition, cooperation and deception - concluding with a verdict on the veracity of each fable's portrayal from a scientific perspective.

By sifting fact from fiction in one of the most beloved texts of our culture, Aesop's Animals explores and challenges our preconceived notions about animals, the way they behave, and the roles we both play in our shared world.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B097PBKKQV
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bloomsbury Sigma
  • Accessibility ‏ : ‎ Learn more
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ 2 Sept. 2021
  • Edition ‏ : ‎ 1st
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2.5 MB
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 376 pages
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1472966933
  • Page Flip ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Customer reviews:
    4.6 out of 5 stars 50 ratings

About the author

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Jo Wimpenny

Jo Wimpenny

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Dr Jo Wimpenny is a zoologist and science writer. After researching crow intelligence at Oxford University, she co-authored Ten Thousand Birds, an award-winning book on the history of ornithology, and has since written for magazines such as BBC Wildlife.

Her latest book, Aesop’s Animals, turns a zoologist’s critical eye to a selection of Aesop's fables, asking whether there is any scientific truth to some of humanity’s most famous animal characters.

Jo lives in Oxford, UK, with her partner.

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
50 global ratings

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Top reviews from United Kingdom

  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic book about animal behaviour
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 November 2021
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    Aesop's Animals is crammed full of scientific information about animal behaviour, written in a warm, easy-to-understand style, and is a must-read for any animal lovers. It debunks some of the stereotypes we have learned as children from Aesop's Fables, such as foxes being sly and donkeys being stupid, and fills the reader with wonder at how these animals have evolved to perfectly suit their environment.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • A.J. Sefton
    5.0 out of 5 stars Lively and entertaining
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 November 2022
    Format: Kindle Edition
    I loved Aesop's Fables as a child and still have a tatty old copy of the book on my shelf. Read often and then again to my own child, I believed in the morality stories and saw them as an ancient type of parable. I was aware, as I grew older, that the animals were personified in order to make the stories more appealing - but I also believed that this was the character of the animals as well. So the stereotype behaviour of the wily fox or the clever crow may well have borne from Aesop thousands of years ago, or are they actually true depictions of these beasts? That was the purpose of this book.

    Jo Wimpenny is a zoologist and studied the behaviour of the animals in the fables, using known research and new studies. There are lots of psychological studies in there as well, such as Pavlov's Dog, to help explain behaviour and how scientists try to define intelligence. The book also covers tool use, self-recognition, imitation, planning, deception and co-operation and whether the scientific evidence backs the characteristics of the chosen animal for a selection of tales - or perhaps another animal would be better cast.

    Although this is science heavy, it is written in a way that makes it a very accessible book to the layman. The various studies are fascinating even if sometimes they wander slightly off-topic, they are always interesting, lively and entertaining. Appealing to lovers of animals, mythology, science and particularly psychology, this is a great read. We can see that we share a lot with animals so maybe using them to explain our own behaviours isn't so odd after all.
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  • Some weird randomer
    3.0 out of 5 stars A mixed bag
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 October 2021
    Format: Kindle Edition
    I enjoyed reading about the experiments performed to test whether the fables were correct, and how they did various different tests to ensure correlation and the reliability of the data, but I struggled with the way the author has written this book. It seemed to wander from one thought to the next with little correlation between the 2 points. For example in the first chapter we're looking at crows, when she suddenly goes off on a tangent about chimps and the evolutionary theory etc before eventually coming back to the topic at hand. I must admit I didn't get all the way to the end as I found it too hard to follow her train of thought, though I did appreciate the references to the experiments so the data could be checked, and the informal language used
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  • John Bullock
    5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 December 2022
    Format: Hardcover
    A fascinating and accessible exploration of the science behind the much loved fables.
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  • Tamzin M Lymath
    5.0 out of 5 stars Totally recommend
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 December 2022
    Format: Hardcover
    A fascinating read - full of interesting facts but written in such an accessible way. Loved it.
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  • Michael Duncan
    5.0 out of 5 stars If you like science and you like animals…
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 December 2022
    Format: Hardcover
    A really well researched and engaging exploration of animal behaviour.
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  • Louise Ward
    5.0 out of 5 stars The true character traits of animals
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 December 2021
    Format: Hardcover
    If you are interested in human behaviour you’ll know animals are often studied to better understand ourselves. Zoologist Jo Wimpenny has written a great book to explore the true character traits of animals versus our inbuilt pre-conceptions of them. When many animals are threatened it’s even more important to have an understanding of them, and exploring animal minds helps us to understand our own place in the world.

    The author explores many psychological aspects of human behaviour in relation to animals such as confirmation bias when jumping to conclusions both about animal traits and particular groups of people. The fables are based on human traits so what better way to understand ourselves than to explore their true behaviour.
    One person found this helpful
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  • c
    5.0 out of 5 stars A highly enjoyable read!
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 September 2021
    Format: Hardcover
    A highly enjoyable read, bringing together classic tales and science! Aesop's Animals explores the truths and misconceptions we infer about animals from the characters that feature in these familiar parables. In each chapter, the author touches on our current understanding about the evolution, behaviour and cognition of the animal characters as well as upon their perception and representation in human culture. Research findings, history and stories are woven together and presented for you to draw your own conclusions about the animals, us humans and the fables themselves. This allows Aesop's Animals to be chock full of interesting facts without feeling heavy handed or didactic. Instead, it is a gently guided exploration, gracefully meandering through the subject matter. It's strange, but perhaps unsurprising, to discover how many of our own characteristics we project onto other species in these stories, and how we continue to propagate these perceptions. The book may or may not change your mind about a given fable or animal, but you'll certainly learn something new!
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Victor D. Manriquez
    5.0 out of 5 stars We should review what we believe about animals
    Reviewed in the United States on 27 March 2025
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    I love Jo Wimpenny's book "Aesop’s Animals". It was an interesting way to review my not so extensive zoological knowledge. The author explores from science, the reality and myth behind the animals which are the protagonists of the fables of Aesop, who obviously did not have this scientific knowledge in her time. In many cases he attributed human characteristics to animals and many of them have made a certain "bad reputation" product of his fables. Discussions and research on animal intelligence and cognition as well as their learning ability to imitation, success and error or social conditioning are widely developed in the text.
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