The Social Lives of Animals

Some animal societies hold a mirror up to the human world: elephants hold funerals for departed family members. Pinyon jays run collective crèches. Rats will go out of their way to help a cold, wet stranger.

Other lifestyles can seem intensely alien. Take locusts, surging over the land in their millions, unable to slow down for a moment because the hungry ranks behind will literally bite their legs off if they don't stay one step ahead (actually, you might know a few people like that).

But no matter how off-putting an animal might be, behavioural scientist Ashley Ward can usually find something worth celebrating. Travelling the world from the Serengeti to the frozen Antarctic ocean, with stops in the muddy fields and streams of his native northern Yorkshire, he brings his curious eye and infectious humour right down to their level.

The result is a world-expanding, myth-busting tour of some of nature's greatest marvels, in delightfully broad-minded company.

The Social Lives of Animals offers an enlightening perspective on animal behaviours, framed through Ward's engaging lens, to invite readers on an extraordinary journey through the animal kingdom.