An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal The Hidden Realms Around Us Quotes
"You could give someone a hug, but if you actually sniffed them, that would be very weird," says Horowitz.
"If I were a catfish, I’d love to jump into a vat of chocolate," John Caprio tells me. "You could taste it with your butt."
"Humans are weird," Caves tells me. "We’re not the pinnacle of any sensory modality, but we’re rocking it with visual acuity."
"We don’t have to look to aliens from other planets," Jakob tells me. "We have animals that have a completely different interpretation of what the world is right next to us."
"But if an owner doesn’t understand that and instead sees a walk as simply a means of exercise or a route to a destination, then every sniffy act becomes an annoyance."
"There are presumably odors of multiple mice around, but they know which trail to follow," Schwenk says.
"I could say that your hair smells great, but I can’t say that you smell great, unless we’re intimate."
"The retinas also rotate together, twisting clockwise and anticlockwise, perhaps because the spider is searching for specific angles that might help it identify what it’s looking at."
"They probably can’t even see their own antennae," Caves says.
"These eyes suit our needs. They also give us a singular Umwelt that most other animals do not share."
"For a fly’s eye to be as sharp as a human’s, it would have to be a meter wide."
"No eye can excel at both [sensitivity and resolution]."
"Some animals simply don’t need to see crisp images."
"Look at a full, living scallop, and you’ll see a very different animal."
"It’s wild and creepy to see all of [a scallop's eyes] opening and closing at the same time."
"If the cameras detect something, the guard sends sniffer dogs to investigate."
"This kind of vision is probably closer to our sense of touch than anything we experience with our eyes."
"Sometimes I feel like I can almost get my mind around it, and extend my empathy into scallops, but a lot of the time I feel lost again."
"An animal doesn’t have to see a picture to be able to use vision."
"Birds move through their visual world, while humans move into it."
"Color vision varies considerably within the 6,000 species of jumping spiders."
"You’re viewing the world with a given set of retinas and a given brain, and if you can’t see with someone else’s, it doesn’t really cross your mind that you’re better."
"Our entire color space is just one face of [a bird's] pyramid."
"Mantis shrimps have more classes of photoreceptors covering the ultraviolet spectrum than we have in total."
"For a mantis shrimp, the human visual world is in front and humans move into it."
"To see movement, [mantis shrimps] have to give up color. To see color, they give up movement."
"It’s very hard to detect movement with an eye that’s also moving."
"Pain, in warning animals of injury and danger, is crucial to their survival."
"We can dissect a mantis shrimp’s eye and work out what every component does, but still never really know how it actually sees."
"Signals are meant to be seen, and so the colors that adorn the fur, scales, feathers, and exoskeletons of animals are shaped by the colors that the animals’ eyes can perceive."
"Nociception says, 'Get away.' Pain says, '... and don’t go back.'"
"Sensing can feel passive, as if eyes and other sense organs were intake valves through which animals absorb and receive the stimuli around them."
"Even if they do feel pain, [fish] have no idea what it’s like to be agonizingly cold."
"Animals often evolve different solutions to the same problems, and different structures for the same tasks."
"Signals from the [rattlesnake's] two [sensory] streams are combined, and information inputs from the visible and infrared spectrums are seemingly fused together by neurons that respond to both."
"In a few frantic moments, it presses its knobby mittens over the seafloor, inspecting whatever it can find."
"To some of the most sensitive paws in the world, the ocean is bright with shapes and textures to be felt, grasped, pressed, prodded, squeezed, stroked, and manhandled—or perhaps otterhandled."
"Hard-shelled prey nestle among the similar hard rocks, but in a split second, the otter feels the difference between the two, and pulls the former from the latter."
"With its sense of touch, its dexterous paws, and its overabundant mustelid confidence, it snatches that clam, yanks that abalone, grabs that sea urchin."
"Our own fingertips are among nature’s most sensitive touch organs."
"They allow us to wield tools with fine precision, to read patterns of raised dots when our vision is impaired, and to control screens with taps, swipes, and touches."
"The sensation of touch, just as our sweet, sour, bitter, salt, and umami receptors together define our sense of taste."
"Touch is a sense of intimacy and immediacy—and it varies just as much as smell or vision."
"Animals differ widely in how sensitive their touch organs are, what they use those organs to feel, and even the body parts on which those organs are found."
"Movement transforms touch from a coarse sense into an exquisite one."
"Touch cannot be ignored. It is a sense of intimacy and immediacy—and it varies just as much as smell or vision."
"The world appears in glorious detail, and abounds with food that its competitors can’t even perceive."
"Animals discover the world by deliberately moving tactile organs over it."
"Every once in a while, when the sun is just right, they look like a field of wheat."
"The earth was full of sounds which the old-time Indian could hear, sometimes putting his ear to it so as to hear more clearly."
"Modern cellphones buzz against our skin and fingertips, alerting us of breaking news, upcoming events, and social attention."
"Our devices use vibrations to connect us to the world beyond our bodies, extending our Umwelt beyond the reach of our anatomy."
"That’s the gross bit: The flies are bred from a compost bin in the corner, full of rotting bananas and milk powder."
"To the spiders, which have very poor eyesight, the room doesn’t really exist: There is only the web, and whatever vibrates it."
"The orb web is a trap, which intercepts and immobilizes flying insects. It’s also a surveillance system, which extends the range of the spider’s senses well beyond the reach of its body."
"If a tasty fly buzzes above an orb-weaver, the spider will simply wave it away with its legs. The fly only becomes recognizable as food if it shakes the web."
"An orb-weaver not only builds its own vibrational landscape but also can adjust it as if tuning a musical instrument."
"But here’s the truly important part: Watanabe found that a well-fed spider will also go after small flies if it is placed onto a tense web built by a hungry spider."
"Even before vibrations are detected by its lyriform organs, the web determines which vibrations will arrive at the leg."
"The spider thinks with its web. Tuning the silk is like tuning its own mind."
"Bats can race through rugged caves, tangled branches, and even mazes of hanging chains."
"Small objects on large backgrounds are automatically camouflaged."
"The bat accentuates this effect by hovering upward and downward in front of the insect."
"Bats must somehow distinguish the echoes of their own calls from those of other individuals."
"Echolocation is mentally demanding, especially since bats do everything they do at speed."
"It is dark, and you, a big brown bat, are hungry."
"Bats are found on every continent except Antarctica, and they account for one in every five mammal species."
"The ears of CF bats are as specialized as their calls."
"Dolphins can discriminate between different objects based on shape, size, and material."
"Current, voltage, and potential carry none of the evocative appeal that sweet, red, and soft possess."
"The electric sense might stretch his imagination, but at least he knows that some insects have it."
"Every spring, billions of bogongs emerge from their pupal stage in the dry plains of southeastern Australia."
"Earth’s core is a solid iron sphere surrounded by molten iron and nickel."
"Magnetoreception research has been polluted by fierce rivalries and confusing errors."
"The geomagnetic field envelops the entire planet and guides animals over migrations that can span continents."
"It’s very expensive to measure properly."
"I’m optimistic that it’ll eventually get solved, but whether it’ll be in my lifetime or not is an open question."
"Magnetic fields can pass unimpeded through biological matter."