An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us
by Ed Yong
I read An Immense World because I am interested in how my animal friends see the world around them.
The author, Ed Yong, defines Umwelt as an animal’s lived sensory world, the parts of its surroundings it can detect and that matter to it. The book provides many examples of how animals senses differ from humans’. And it also provides examples of senses humans don’t have.
My world takes place during the daylight, not at night. But using a night vision scope I have seen my cat walking easily in total darkness. Due to their tapetum lucidum, the reflective layer behind a cat’s retina, cats see better in the dark than humans do. Actually seeing her in action made it real.
I had trouble visualizing a duck’s field of vision, because they can see over their own heads as they fly, but that’s still vision.
Ditto spiders. Their eyes go all around the turret of their head and each has a different function, and that is how they visualize their world.
Bats use echolocation to navigate and to hunt. This is still plain old hearing, though at a higher frequency. Blind humans can learn to echolocate with taps, clicks or by snapping their fingers.
But the ability to “feel” magnetic north is unimaginable to unenhanced humans. I have a pretty good sense of direction, but knowing would be cool.
Having organs in my face that detect bioelectricity sounds cool too. Can you imagine detecting dinner by its electrical aura?
Yong’s style is casual yet engaging. I would like to read his other books, especially Life Beyond Measure: Nature’s Hidden Wonders at Every Scale.
I highly recommend An Immense World to anyone who is curious about the parallel worlds the animals around us live in.
