SCIENCE science.org 3 JUNE 2022 • VOL 376 ISSUE 6597 1047PHOTO: LUCY COOKE
been labeled “feminists,” to their detriment.
“Empirically minded biologists hear that
dreaded F-word and assume it must mean
‘ideologically driven,’” one scientist tells
Cooke. “What they overlooked of course was
how masculinist many of their own assump-
tions were, how androcentric the theoretical
foundations of their own Darwinian world
view was.”
Cooke eventually comes to the realization
that, in nature, there are ultimately more
similarities than differences between male
and female animals, noting myriad examples
of behavioral, neurological, and sometimes
even morphological equality across the sexes.
Jubilant and smirking as it is in parts, Bitch
ends with a clarion call to science. To gain the
best understanding of the natural world, we
need more diversity, both in the animals we
study and in the people doing the work.Bitch: On the Female of the Species, Lucy Cooke,
Basic Books, 2022, 400 pp.An Immense World
Reviewed by Joe Hanson^8Among that corpus of German words that are
so enviably apt at expressing complex feel-
ings and ideas, “Umwelt” might be the most
exquisite. Jakob von Uexküll introduced the
concept of the Umwelt in 1909 to capture the
idea that every animal has an individual real-
ity defined by its particular sensory arsenal.jamming moths face off against hungry and
agile echolocating bats.
Yong won a Pulitzer Prize in 2021 for his re-
porting throughout the COVID-19 pandemic,
and he brings to this book his characteristic
skill in blending crisp scientific explanations
and entertaining analogies with the very hu-
man stories behind the underlying research.
The book conveys the various motives, ob-
sessions, and challenges driving the humans
who probe these sensory worlds without
distracting from the central characters—the
Umwelten and the animals that inhabit them.
Yong even takes time to remind readers that
humanity is polluting these sensory worlds
and threatening animals’ very ways of being.
If the book has a weakness, it is that the gal-
lery of animal senses is so broad that at times
it feels like trying to tour the Louvre in a day.
Often, the reader is only allowed a brief glance
at exquisite works that, given more consid-
eration, would each be worth fully fleshed
stories of their own (and in fact, many of the
characters we meet have had whole books
written about them).
Human technology and scientific inquisi-
tiveness have provided tantalizing peeks into
these parallel sensory existences. An Immense
World is an outstanding effort that reminds us
that the Universe contains possibilities we can
scarcely imagine.An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the
Hidden Realms Around Us, Ed Yong, Random House,
2022, 464 pp.10.1126/science.abq6526A creature’s experiences are both enriched
and limited by the sensory windows through
which it peers out into (or tastes, or feels)
the world. In the century since, scientists
have become increasingly aware that a vast
sensory cosmos exists beyond our reach, not
just in electromagnetic waves and molecular
stimuli but also in ways of being.
In his 1974 essay “What Is It Like to Be a
Bat?,” philosopher Thomas Nagel argues
that to fully imagine the sensory reality of
another species is at best difficult, and more
likely impossible, because our ability to expe-
rience another species’ Umwelt is limited by
the reach of our own senses. In his new book,
An Immense World, Ed Yong embraces the
impossibility of the endeavor with gusto and
humility, reminding readers that each of the
animals we meet is a sophisticated observer of
the world in ways we can scarcely appreciate.
Through 13 chapters, Yong takes readers on
a Willy Wonka–like journey into the expansive
parallel universes of how animals smell, hear,
touch, see, taste, and even magnetically divine
the world that we share. We find the author
on all fours, bested by a dog named Finn in a
sniffing contest; taking a punch from a man-
tis shrimp (a surly stomatopod with a unique
form of color vision); and even attempting an
infrared staring contest with a red diamond
rattlesnake. To compensate for his (and our)
inherently limited human vision, Yong deploys
vivid language, pondering the social life of fish
that both navigate and communicate using
electric fields and narrating a play-by-play of
the acoustic aerial battleground where sound-The clitoris of the female fossa (Cryptoprocta ferox) develops into a penis-like structure during adolescence. The pseudo-penis recedes when the fossa reaches sexual maturity.Corrected 3 June 2022. See full text.