THE HABITAT Nairobi National Park lies to the south-southeast of the capital of Kenya, Nairobi, where the Athi Plains meet the Eastern escarpment of the Rift Valley. These plains form part of the semi-arid highland plateau lying between the coast and the Rift Valley. Both the city itself, and the Park bordering it, are a meeting place of two generally distinct types of landscape and climate. While to the east-southeast are semi-arid plains with grasslands and scattered trees, the western-north western parts are higher, hilly, cooler, more humid and support lush forests. The combination of latitude-a little over one degree south of the Equator -and altitude-average of 1600 m. (5000-5500 ft.) -combine to give Nairobi a most equable climate where the temperature varies during the year between about 11 degrees and 27 degrees centigrade (mean minimum and mean maximum for eight years). However, considerable changes are usually experienced within each day and a rise from 14 degrees C at 0600 hours to 22 degrees at 1100 hours is not unusual. Nairobi Park has a unique concentration of wild animals living in their natural habitat less than 10 km. from the centre of a modern city of half a million people. The only interference with the natural course of events in the Park is that normally required for the proper management of a game park, such as maintenance of roads and dams, and, in this particular case, partial fencing towards the city.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1874.

A rat will go out of its way to help a stranger in need. Lions have adopted the calves of their prey. Ants farm fungus in cooperatives. Why do we continue to believe that life in the animal kingdom is ruled by competition? In The Social Lives of Animals, biologist Ashley Ward takes us on a wild tour across the globe as he searches for a more accurate picture of how animals build societies. Ward drops in on a termite mating ritual (while his guides snack on the subjects), visits freelance baboon goatherds, and swims with a mixed family of whales and dolphins. Along the way, Ward shows that the social impulses we’ve long thought separated humans from other animals might actually be our strongest connection to them. Insightful, engaging, and often hilarious, The Social Lives of Animals demonstrates that you can learn more about animals by studying how they work together than by how they compete.

Evolutionary Neuroscience, Second Edition, is a collection of chapters on brain evolution that combines selected topics from the recent comprehensive reference, Evolution of Nervous Systems (Elsevier, Academic Press, 2017, 9780128040423). The selected chapters cover a broad range of topics, from historical theory, to the most recent deductions from comparative studies of brains. The articles are organized in sections focused on history, concepts and theory, the evolution of brains from early vertebrates to present-day fishes, amphibians, reptiles and birds, the evolution of mammalian brains, and the evolution of primate brains, including human brains. Each chapter is written by a leader or leaders in the field. Specific topics include brain character reconstruction, principles of brain scaling, basic features of vertebrate brains, the evolution of the major sensory systems, other parts of brains, what we can learn from fossils, the origin of neocortex, and the evolution of specializations of human brains. The collection of articles will be interesting to anyone who is curious about how brains evolved from the simpler nervous systems of the first vertebrates into the many different complex forms now found in present-day vertebrates. - Provides the most comprehensive, authoritative and up-to-date single volume collection on brain evolution - Presents a full color treatment, with many illustrations - Written by leading scholars and experts - Features chapters on brain character reconstruction, principles of brain scaling, basic features of vertebrate brains, the evolution of the major sensory systems, and other parts of brains - Discusses what we can learn from fossils, the origin of neocortex, and the evolution of specializations of human brains