Search results for ""author lynne a. isbell""
Harvard University Press The Fruit, the Tree, and the Serpent: Why We See So Well
From the temptation of Eve to the venomous murder of the mighty Thor, the serpent appears throughout time and cultures as a figure of mischief and misery. The worldwide prominence of snakes in religion, myth, and folklore underscores our deep connection to the serpent—but why, when so few of us have firsthand experience? The surprising answer, this book suggests, lies in the singular impact of snakes on primate evolution. Predation pressure from snakes, Lynne Isbell tells us, is ultimately responsible for the superior vision and large brains of primates—and for a critical aspect of human evolution. Drawing on extensive research, Isbell further speculates how snakes could have influenced the development of a distinctively human behavior: our ability to point for the purpose of directing attention. A social activity (no one points when alone) dependent on fast and accurate localization, pointing would have reduced deadly snake bites among our hominin ancestors. It might have also figured in later human behavior: snakes, this book eloquently argues, may well have given bipedal hominins, already equipped with a non-human primate communication system, the evolutionary nudge to point to communicate for social good, a critical step toward the evolution of language, and all that followed.
£22.95
Johns Hopkins University Press Primate Socioecology
This game-changing book questions long-accepted rules of primate socioecology and redefines the field from the ground up. In Primate Socioecology, renowned researcher Lynne A. Isbell offers a fresh perspective on primate social organizations that redefines the field from the ground up. Through her innovative Variable Home Range Sharing model, Isbell unravels the mystery of why some primates live alone while others live in pairs or groupsa question that has perplexed scientists for decades. This new approach diverges from the traditional focus on predation pressure as the main determinant of primate social organization to reveal deeper ecological causes of primate behavior. The implications of this shift are profound, underscoring the critical importance of a behavioral-ecological mechanism in which varying movement strategies affect which females share their home ranges and ultimately pointing to a new functional classification system for primate social organizations. Isbell also d
£48.60
