New Releases by Cynthia Moss

How do bats catch insects in the dark? How do bees learn which flowers to visit? How do food-storing birds remember where their hoards are? Questions like these are addressed by neuroethology, the branch of behavioral neuroscience concerned with analyzing the neural bases of naturally occurring behaviors. This book brings together thirteen chapters presenting findings on perceptual and cognitive processes in some of the most active areas of neuroethological research, including auditory localization by bats and owls, song perception and learning in birds, pitch processing by frogs and toads, imprinting in birds, spatial memory in birds, learning in bees and in Aplysia, and electroreception in fish. A variety of approaches are represented, such as field studies, psychophysical tests, electrophysiological experiments, lesion studies, comparative neuroanatomy, and studies of development. Each chapter gives an up-to-date overview of a particular author’s research and places it within the broader context of issues about animal perception and cognition. The book as a whole exemplifies how studying species and their particular specializations can inform general issues in psychology, ethology, and neuro-science.

The use of synthetic fertilizers is especially prevalent in South Florida for two reasons: sandy soil and year round farming. Costs beyond monetary value accompany the agricultural industry's dependence on synthetic fertilizers. Vermicompost produced entirely from food waste is the proposed alternative soil amendment discussed in this thesis. Vermicompost produced over a six-month period was quantitatively analyzed and yielded the following results: roughly 110 pounds of repurposed food waste can produce 150 pounds of compost with N, P, K, ratios (defined as percent by weight concentrations of total nitrogen, total phosphorous and elemental potassium) ten times less than their synthetic counterparts. Despite that, I argue that vermicompost is a practical and advantageous option upon consideration of the environmental loss, production cost, and sustainability issues synthetic fertilizers manifest.

Cynthia Moss has studied the elephants in Kenya's Amboseli National Park for over twenty-seven years. Her long-term research has revealed much of what we now know about these complex and intelligent animals. Here she chronicles the lives of the members of the T families led by matriarchs Teresia, Slit Ear, Torn Ear, Tania, and Tuskless. With a new afterword catching up on the families and covering current conservation issues, Moss's story will continue to fascinate animal lovers. "One is soon swept away by this 'Babar' for adults. By the end, one even begins to feel an aversion for people. One wants to curse human civilization and cry out, 'Now God stand up for the elephants!'"—Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times "Moss speaks to the general reader, with charm as well as scientific authority. . . . [An] elegantly written and ingeniously structured account." —Raymond Sokolov, Wall Street Journal "Moss tells the story in a style so conversational . . . that I felt like a privileged visitor riding beside her in her rickety Land-Rover as she showed me around the park." —Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, New York Times Book Review "A prose-poem celebrating a species from which we could learn some moral as well as zoological lessons." —Chicago Tribune

Follows a young elephant as he struggles to survive during his first year of life with the help of his family in Amboseli, a protected wildlife park in Kenya.

Records an eighteen month period in the life of one elephant family in Amboseli National Park in Kenya.

Ce livre traite de la vie quotidienne d'une famille élargie d'éléphants, de la façon dont ils survivent ou succombent aux sécheresses, aux maladies, aux blessures, etc. Après une scène d'introduction relativement brève, chaque chapitre se répartit en deux temps: d'abord le thème général (accouplement, organisation sociale, etc.), ensuite les événements et les évolutions observés dans la vie de la harde. Une somme unique de connaissances prises sur le vif.

Synthesizes the results of some of the more recent systematic observations and studies of the behavior of fifteen major East African species, including the elephant, giraffe, black rhinoceros, zebra, wildebeest, lion, and spotted hyena