Kingdom of Play: What Ballbouncing Octopuses, Bellyflopping Monkeys, and Mudsliding Elephants Reveal about Life Itself

For readers of Inside of a Dog and The Soul of an Octopus, a fascinating, charming, and revelatory look at the science behind why animals play that shows how lifeat its most fundamental levelisplayful.In Kingdom of Play, critically acclaimed science writer David Toomey takes us on a fastpaced and entertaining tour of playful animals and the scientists who study them. From octopuses on Australias Great Barrier Reef to meerkats in the Kalahari Desert to brown bears on Alaskas Aleutian Islands, we follow adventurous researchers as they design and conduct experiments seeking answers to new, intriguing questions: When did play first appear in animals? How does play develop the brain, and how did it evolve? Are the songs and aerial acrobatics of birds the beginning of avian culture? Is fairness in dog play the foundation of canine ethics? And does play direct and possibly accelerate evolution?Monkeys bellyflop, dolphins tailwalk, elephants mudslide, crows divebomb, and octopuses bounce balls. These activities are various, but all are play, and as Toomey explains, animal play can be seen as a distinct behaviorone that is ongoing and openended, purposeless and provisionalrather like natural selection. Through a close examination of both natural selection and play, Toomey argues that life itself is fundamentally playful.A globespanning journey and a scientific detective story filled with lively animal anecdotes, Kingdom of Play is an illuminatingand yes, playfullook at a littleknown aspect of the animal kingdom.