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The Creative Lives of Animals

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

Winner of the 2023 Nautilus Book Award in the category of Animals & Nature

The surprising, fascinating, and remarkable ways that animals use creativity to thrive in their habitats

Most of us view animals through a very narrow lens, seeing only bits and pieces of beings that seem mostly peripheral to our lives. However, whether animals are building a shelter, seducing a mate, or inventing a new game, animals' creative choices affect their social, cultural, and environmental worlds.
The Creative Lives of Animals offers readers intimate glimpses of creativity in the lives of animals, from elephants to alligators to ants. Drawing on a growing body of scientific research, Carol Gigliotti unpacks examples of creativity demonstrated by animals through the lens of the creative process, an important component of creative behavior, and offers new thinking on animal intelligence, emotion, and self-awareness. With examples of the elaborate dams built by beavers or the lavishly decorated bowers of bowerbirds, Gigliotti provides a new perspective on animals as agents in their own lives, as valuable contributors to their world and ours, and as guides in understanding how creativity may contribute to conserving the natural world. Presenting a powerful argument for the importance of recognizing animals as individuals and as creators of a healthy, biodiverse world, this book offers insights into both the established and emerging questions about the creativity of animals.

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  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from September 12, 2022
      Artist and scholar Gigliotti (Leonardo’s Choice) provides an illuminating account of creativity in the wild. Defining creativity as “a dynamic process in which novel and meaningful behaviors are generated by individuals with the possibility of affecting others at cultural, species, and evolutionary levels,” Gigliotti posits that while “most of us view animals through a very narrow lens” and see them as “mostly peripheral to our lives,” they exhibit extensively creative behaviors. One such activity, she writes, is play, which scientists have observed in octopuses, rays, turtles, and paper wasps. Humpback whale researchers, for example, believe that the phenomenon of bubbling, in which whales create nets of bubbles to trap schools of fish, may be learned from playing rather than from observed behavior. Each case study is surprising: in one, a chicken displays empathy for a woman who is unable to save another chicken from a fatal injury, while elsewhere crocodiles surf waves and cuttlefish use creative deceptions for reproductive advantages. By the end, Gigliotti makes a solid case that humans have a lot to learn about the creatures that they share the planet with, and that much of what scientists previously thought was uniquely human isn’t. Fans of Jane Goodall and Frans de Waal will be pleased.

    • Booklist

      October 1, 2022
      If you've ever purchased one of the many different types of ""squirrel proof"" bird feeders, you can attest to the resourcefulness of animals. In this intriguing investigation of animal ingenuity, Gigliotti contemplates the novelty and meaning of creativity along with some essential elements, such as curiosity, flexibility, and persistence. And while instinct and genetic programming perhaps account for certain kinds of animals' inventive behaviors, something grander also appears to be at work. Gigliotti emphasized seven topics, animal architecture, communication, culture, emotion, intelligence, playfulness, and sexual energy. Beavers display marvelous construction skills and remarkable ingenuity. Some birds and primates improvise by using twigs or stones as tools. Pigeons possess an aptitude for abstract reasoning. Elephants are empathic creatures, but who'd have guessed chickens are, too? As for play, octopuses enjoy hide-and-seek. Human beings do not have a monopoly on creativity and the problem-solving process; evolution itself can be viewed as creative and innovative. Gigliotti convincingly illustrates how ""Creativity is a powerful force throughout the biosphere.

      COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Library Journal

      August 1, 2022

      Gigliotti (emerita, design, Emily Carr Univ.; Leonardo's Choice) examines whether the current definitions of creativity include animal behaviors, and what this reevaluation would mean for the value of animals and the understanding of the creative process. The author defines creativity as the process in which individuals invent new and meaningful behaviors that have the possibility of affecting others at multiple levels. In practice, this means innovative solutions to technical, social, or artistic problems. She builds the case that animals of all types--from elephants to ants--are intelligent, albeit in ways that may manifest differently than humans, and they can communicate nuance, allowing individual behavioral innovation to spread through a community. Creativity may be expressed or nurtured in play, construction, and tool use. In what feels like a bit of a divergence, the final chapters investigate whether emotion, culture, and morality are intrinsically tied to creativity. Ultimately, Gigliotti's agenda is to seek greater empathy, value, and protection for animals by including them into a global creative force. VERDICT This broad survey of creative animal behavior will appeal to artists of all types and to animal lovers.--Wade Lee-Smith

      Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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