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Everything you always wanted to know about cetaceans and their intelligence captured here in a single beautiful volume by some of the world's greatest experts. The natural behavior of these animals is extremely hard to study. What we have learned is not only astonishing but also humbling. --Frans de Waal, author of Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?

Everything you always wanted to know about cetaceans and their intelligence captured here in a single beautiful volume by some of the world's greatest experts. The natural behavior of these animals is extremely hard to study. What we have learned is not only astonishing but also humbling. --Frans de Waal, author of Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? If, like me, you are an avid watcher of TV programmes about whales, dolphins and porpoises, and wonder what is going on in the heads of these fellow mammals during their complex behaviour, Deep Thinkers has to be on your reading list. With excellent illustrations and chapters by acknowledged experts, this book gives an overview of the history and current state of research on the minds of cetaceans.... Buy the book-it is a wonderful read. -- Biologist The experts in this volume explore the whys and wherefores of cetacean thinking. There are chapters on cognition, tool use and communication, analyses of cetacean social lives, and anatomical studies. In keeping technical language to a minimum and matching the clearly written text to beautiful illustrations and clear and concise diagrams, Mann and her collaborators have produced an evocative summary of what it is to be whale. -- New Scientist This is a pleasant, nonscientific book written by excellent marine mammal, psychology, and brain scientists. It is beautifully illustrated, with educational color drawings and some of the finest color composites of whales (by Bryan Austin) ever presented, for a total of 150 color plates. ... a lovely work--with fine science interpreted in fine manner, and with some of the most beautiful illustrations and, especially, photographs of cetaceans. -- Marine Mammal Science Deep Thinkers: Inside the Minds of Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises, edited by Mann, is a gorgeous picture book at the very highest level, in which leading research scientists tell us about the current state of knowledge in their subfields. -- New York Review of Books A winner. A cross between a cetacean encyclopedia and a coffee-table book, Deep Thinkers breaks new ground: 'Until now no book has covered the state-of-the-art scientific discoveries across cetacean species, ' Mann notes. Mann invited cetacean scientists to contribute to the volume and, as a result, it's teeming with cool stuff. To focus on its stunning photographs for a moment, Heidi Harley's informative chapter 'Cognition' includes a wild bottlenose dolphin during apparent play as she balances a yellow clam shell on her rostrum; a group of wild common dolphins collaboratively herding sardines into a ball for easier predation; and an Atlantic spotted dolphin 'carrying seaweed, possibly to impress females.' Wow! . . . Gorgeous. --Barbara J. King NPR's 13.7: Cosmos & Culture

Everything you always wanted to know about cetaceans and their intelligence captured here in a single beautiful volume by some of the world's greatest experts. The natural behavior of these animals is extremely hard to study. What we have learned is not only astonishing but also humbling. --Frans de Waal, author of Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? A winner. A cross between a cetacean encyclopedia and a coffee-table book, Deep Thinkers breaks new ground: 'Until now no book has covered the state-of-the-art scientific discoveries across cetacean species, ' Mann notes. Mann invited cetacean scientists to contribute to the volume and, as a result, it's teeming with cool stuff. To focus on its stunning photographs for a moment, Heidi Harley's informative chapter 'Cognition' includes a wild bottlenose dolphin during apparent play as she balances a yellow clam shell on her rostrum; a group of wild common dolphins collaboratively herding sardines into a ball for easier predation; and an Atlantic spotted dolphin 'carrying seaweed, possibly to impress females.' Wow! . . . Gorgeous. --Barbara J. King NPR's 13.7: Cosmos & Culture

Author Information

Janet Mann is professor of biology and psychology at Georgetown University. She is coeditor of Cetacean Societies: Field Studies of Dolphins and Whales, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

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