Best marine mammals biology books according to redditors

The Beast in the Garden should be required reading for new Boulderites.

The cast and crew recently made bat houses to help declining bats which you can see in this PSA they made. It also has video of Amy Adams holding a bat that's like half her size.
The bat houses they made are now up for auction:.

For anyone who would like to learn more about bats, I recommend this book as a great place to start. It's not too long, has great pictures, answers common questions, and is basically the perfect book for a child's book report. Check if your library has it.

If the mountain lion is doing its job right, you will never see it.

Try reading The Beast In The Garden, it's about when mountain lions came to Boulder. The hippies loved the mountain lions, at least until the deer started disappearing, then pets, then people.

https://www.amazon.com/Beast-Garden-Predators-Suburban-America/dp/0393326349

A neighbor was unknowingly stalked by a mountain lion some years back, during deer season. He was up on the other side of Cheyenne Mountain somewhere, walking up a valley or gulch with snow on the ground. He got a creeped out feeling, turned around and headed back to his truck, following his own tracks. He got a little ways down the trail, to find mountain lion tracks in his tracks.

I bought this dress a few months ago (Black Friday shopping? Cyber Monday? Something like that) and it's work-appropriate so I'm able to go to work and then out afterwards!

I'm getting him a card I found from Boomf, due to a Facebook ad (it should be coming in this week!). I liked the idea of the confetti and the little picture cube! However, it does ship from overseas so it may not get here in time if you live in the US (I think it's from the UK).

I'm getting him a book (either Where the Crawdads Sing or Secrets of the Savanna) as the "big" present. Still undecided on whether I want to get him anything else.

Not sure if we're going out or staying in to cook dinner like we did last year (because it's on a Thursday, boo!), but either way it's going to be great! We'll have been dating for 14 months by the time Valentine's comes, but have known each other for nearly 3 years.

> For example, black people and white people very obviously have different nose shapes.

This was refuted in literally my first week of Anthropology 100 in my undergrad. Which of these is the black nose?

This one?

This one?

This one?

This one?

This one?

>If it were only skin tone that influenced how we label different races, we'd find it impossible to tell the difference between, say, some Indians and some African Americans, but it actually isn't that hard at all.

Except it is, which is why a number of "African Americans" successfully posed as Indian during Jim Crow, for example Korla Pandit.

>but the one area where there is variation is in the characteristics we as a society have picked out upon to make the racial split in the first place.

You really should read the books I linked about the construction of race in America. To reiterate, those were Racial Formation in the United States, White By Law: The Legal Construction of Race, The History of White People, The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime and the Making of Modern Urban America.

One of the commenters who came from /r/sociology after you suggested I cross post in subs where the users have relevant academic training also added to that some Franz Boas, which I'd like to reiterate. A good introduction to biological anthropology will reiterate what I've said about white/black groupings that you're assuming and then reifying, as will all the resources here as will a good intro to sociology.

To reiterate (1) genetic populations exist, and may share some characteristics -- for instance, San people in South Africa are reliably different than Zulu people. (2) When you try to group those populations together into something like "black" it just doesn't work. The 5 or 7 or however many you want "races" do not have any basis in biological reality (3) groupings like "black" or "African American" are too diverse to make statements like "black people all share thus and such cranial shape/nasal capacity/whatever." Therefore, (4) it makes no sense to say that you can "hear" when someone is "black" because of something biological or physiological because "black" is not a biologically meaningful category, despite its incredibly high social salience. I further argued, above, that what OP does hear is likely an accent, from an ethnolect, which came about precisely because of the social construction of race. I have friends who have "black" parentage, but everyone treats them as "white" because they "look white" and "sound white." You cannot tell by listening that their parents are black, because it's not a biologically meaningful grouping that would actually affect physiology such that it had an affect on language.

A logical terminus of the inverse argument others have proposed above is that there are fundamental biological differences, directly related to race, which affect language production. We know this to be false.

Even in your aside on tone, you're still assuming "white" and "African American" are biologically meaningful groupings, when they're not.

Meat Eater by Steven Rinella is a wonderful book about his life as a hunter.
American Buffalo is another book from Rinella that not only tells of the hunt but contains a great history lesson.

Some great answers in here, but if you really want to understand then you will want to dive into a documentary, lecture, or book.

Documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7WHs6I1NLs

Lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x858bOny4Gw

Audiobook: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG0j_lvW6A0

Books!

Relatively light reading: https://www.amazon.com/Masters-Planet-Search-Origins-MacSci/dp/1137278307/

A bit higher level: https://www.amazon.com/Lone-Survivors-Came-Humans-Earth/dp/1250023300

Textbook: https://www.amazon.com/Complete-World-Human-Evolution-Second/dp/0500288984

Genetic Entropy

The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature by Steven Pinker

A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History by Nicholas Wade

On Genetic Interests: Family, Ethnicity, and Humanity in an Age of Mass Migration by Frank Salter

The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements by Kevin MacDonald

On Sparta by Plutarch

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Beyond Good and Evil and The Anti-Christ by Friedrich Nietzsche

Confessions of a Reluctant Hater and New Right vs. Old Right by Greg Johnson

Error catastrophe is not the same as genetic entropy: they would look related to a layman, suggesting error catastrophe is the acute form.

However, like many forms of poisoning, the chronic form doesn't exist: there are mechanisms in play that prevent this, mechanisms ignored in his simulations -- and his H1N1 work redefines fitness in order to make the data fit his hypothesis.

But if you're willing to look past that, you might shell out $20 for his book. Real science isn't sold in $20 increments, however.

This is where I find creationism overlaps with conspiracy. He tells you there's a problem, then sells you a book on it.

Raccoons: A Natural History

For books, The Fossil Trail and The Complete World of Human Evolution are good overviews, while Sapiens and Lone Survivors are interesting accounts of evidence about the emergence of our species.

I also really recommend the CARTA lectures available on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1B24EADC01219B23.

You can browse through that playlist to look for interesting topics, or search for something like 'carta university california' or 'carta uctv' or 'carta uctv [topic]' to see what's popular, or follow YouTube's recommendations between videos. Each one is pretty short at ~20 min, with 3 sometimes linked in hour-long videos.

There's a wide range of evidence and interpretations about things like coexistence of varieties vs intra-population diversity, the general nature and causes of genetic structure between populations, extinction due to direct conflict or competition vs. other factors, and so on - so it helps to see the range of viewpoints between different researchers, and range of evidence and interpretations from different fields.

These are some examples:

Emergence of Homo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W005V6OV_E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CazsHKnxmHQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5vOgDK3BKs

Sapiens origins, population movements, non-sapiens admixture:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdP-Wjd1qSY&t=888s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ2H9NUn150&t=2343s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCzcPSMz1tA

'Self-domestication':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaS-teo33Zo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaS-teo33Zo

Climate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcBMrw9JQgA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLmCbBVq0xM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRk_gcNf7jo

Violence:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRsQDfgwP08&t=12s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGaQ-oEpNG0

Art:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCuQw5I1-z0&t=423s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0TKYxAYGGA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2rodmJcn7g

I highly recommend a reading of "The Beast in the Garden", about the history of mountain lions (and their interactions with humans) in Boulder. Them kitties deserve some serious respect!

http://www.amazon.com/The-Beast-Garden-Predators-Suburban/dp/0393326349

I highly recommend his book: http://www.amazon.com/American-Buffalo-Search-Lost-Icon/dp/0385521693

This is how I was introduced to him.

Jonathan Marks' The Alternative Introduction to Biological Anthropology is great. I've used it to teach intro-level courses. It's well written, engaging, and often very funny.

If you want a scientific work that really covers all the topics of

>the transition and rise that brought about homo sapiens

I can really recommend Human Evolutionary Genetics from Jobling et al.

Using (and explaining) the tools and methods of modern genetics, this awesome book meticulously traces the development of homo sapiens, even covering topics like the colonization of the world.

Easily one of my favourite scholarly books of all time.

I used Human Molecular Genetics by Strachan and Read for a Human Genetics university course a while back. It has the basics in the early chapters, but also goes into more depth regarding the topics you're interested in. It looks like the newest edition has a new section on Human Evolutionary Genetics: https://www.amazon.com/Human-Molecular-Genetics-Tom-Strachan/dp/0815345895/ref=asc_df_0815345895/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=265989256760&hvpos=1o15&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11363577135974897694&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9023224&hvtargid=pla-645787829197&psc=1

​

Human Evolutionary Genetics by Jobling et al has a more specific focus, but is a bit dated (2013): https://www.amazon.com/Human-Evolutionary-Genetics-Mark-Jobling/dp/0815341482/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=human+evolutionary+genetics&qid=1571693034&sr=8-1

Dolphin Diaries: My 25 Years with Spotted Dolphins in the Bahamas by Dr. Denise L. Herzing is great, lots of interesting stuff about dolphin behavior, written about engagingly by the author.

I also really enjoyed Lads Before the Wind : Diary of a Dolphin Trainer by Karen Pryor, it's obviously more focused on captive dolphins and the process of training them, but the book makes it fascinating.

It's called 'Raccoons: A Natural History.' There are actually so few contemporary books outside the children's genre on the Trash Panda, I'm trying to read all the literature I can get my hands on them to grasp what i guess academics called the 'historiographical' state of the subject, because increasingly - especially given the interest here, and the unprecedented overlap in human & Raccoon ecology - it seems like there's a gap in the publishing world for someone to write contemporary cultural history of the Trash Panda.

Zeveloff's is among the few publications that comes close, although luckily Raccoon Whisperer has promised some additional titles for me to check out.

https://www.amazon.com/Raccoons-Natural-Samuel-I-Zeveloff/dp/1588340333

I have some more suggestions.

Wolves

Decade of the Wolf: Returning the Wild to Yellowstone

American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West

Wolves at Our Door: The Extraordinary Story of the Couple Who Lived With Wolves

Big Cats

Heart of a Lion: A Loose Cat's Walk Across America

Beast in the Garden: A Modern Parable of Man and Nature

Lion Hearted: The Life and Death of Cecil & The Future of Africa's Iconic Cats

The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival

Bears

In the Company of Bears: What Black Bears Have Taught Me about Intelligence and Intuition

Grizzly Years: In Search of the American Wilderness

Animal Attacks

Occasionally sensational, but I firmly believe that respect for animals is necessary for survival, and one of the most important aspects of that respect is remembering that wild animals are indeed wild, and more than capable of putting us in our place.

Dangerous Beauty: Encounters With Grizzlies and Bison in Yellowstone

When Man Becomes Prey: Fatal Encounters with North America's Most Feared Predators

http://www.amazon.com/American-Buffalo-Search-Lost-Icon/dp/0385521693/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

http://www.amazon.com/Scavengers-Guide-Haute-Cuisine-Rinella/dp/B001Q9E9L0/ref=pd_sim_b_1

Do you read? There are a ton of great books that will teach you skills you can later try when you have the opportunity, and also stories that will immerse you in the outdoors in your imagination when you don't have the chance to be there for real. I love reading old mountain man accounts and stories. Honestly, you do learn little tricks, or other bushcraft info from reading these stories. It could be tips for tracking animals (or people), tips on wild edibles, really anything...

One book I actually learned a ton from was the SAS guide to tracking. Particularly the stuff about letting your eyes adjust to the dark, rather than relying on a flashlight. It's legit.

Also, watch youtube videos when you can't get out! You don't really need supplies, they are mainly luxuries. I love CedrikG (active redditor, too), Joe Robinet (I like his canoe trip videos), Survival Lilly (she has a lot of general teaching/information videos)

American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon documents the story of one man's trials of hunting a buffalo in 2006 after he wins a hunting lottery of a herd in Alaska near the Copper River. This was an engrossing read and the book has a parallel storyline of the history of buffalo and, particularly, human's relationship with buffalo and how it has changed over millennia. As I began to follow the author's story, I realized that it was neither a one-sided defense for hunting an endangered animal nor a biased lobbying of conservation efforts across the Great Plains; the end result is an emotional state that can only be captured by the complex and convoluted history of buffalo hunting that Steven Rinella captures succinctly and powerfully.

I wouldn't consider them part of my heritage. It's been demonstrated that you would have more DNA in common with a stranger within your own ethnic group than the offspring of your own children who mixed race. I would tell my children to reconsider dating and marrying outside of their race. Interracial marriage is anathema.

Vulpes vulpes is in the Canidae family, which includes dogs and doesn't include cats. I would like to see a source for "Biologists have stated foxes are actually more closely related to cats than they are dogs".

Edit: Ok "biologists" might refer to the guy that wrote this book. Foxes might look and behave more cat-like than dog-like, but I think biologically they still must be closer to dogs. The resemblance and behavioral similarities come from convergent evolution and sharing the same types of prey and such.

For field guides the more generalized ones are usually easier to get a hold of. A few you could look at are from National Geographic, Peterson, and Sibley. There are also some books for getting started, such as Sibley's Birding Basics. Backyard Bird guides are also a good place to start.

For North Dakota specifically I found this great pdf that covers all the basics of bird watching, and this field guide. Hope this helps!

This book was helpful. I borrowed it from the university library, so the cost was not an issue.

http://www.amazon.com/Migration-Organisms-Climate-Geography-Ecology/dp/3540266038

If you need something to curl up by the fire with - this is a spectacular reference for animal sign in NA. There is a companion volume for birds, as well.

I'm no pro and have no experience in tracking but I did like the SAS Guide to Tracking. It does go over tracking people which obviously isn't as useful for Bushcrafters but very informative all around.

We really enjoy the community, and have a perfect modern diet without supplementation most of them yearly, and I definitely thought that was made in a place to start](http://amzn.com/0292712804).

I heard this guy speak in Austin a few years ago. The book has been on my to-do list.

Mammal Tracks & Signs: A Guide to North American Species. A long shot but why not? I don't want to spend that much on it (at the moment).

If you like Bison, you should see about stopping at the National Buffalo Museum in Jamestown then. There's some white (albino) buffalo there, some offspring of White Cloud I believe. Sometimes you can see them as you're driving by on I-94, but there's a lot of information and history in the museum.

I'd also recommend Steven Rinella's book: American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon, which can be picked up at the museum.

If you haven't already, definitely check out this book, by far the best I've seen on the topic (for animals), and I've read a bunch. This one is another great one.

I'm not, I've read several books and academic papers on the history of the American Buffalo. So have a read an correct yourself.

https://fee.org/articles/buffaloed-the-myth-and-reality-of-bison-in-america/

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2079530?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

https://www.amazon.com/American-Buffalo-Search-Lost-Icon/dp/0385521693

https://www.amazon.com/American-Serengeti-Animals-Great-Plains/dp/070062466X

https://www.amazon.com/Destruction-Bison-Environmental-1750-1920-Environment/dp/0521003482

Peterson's Guide is a book; probably in local libraries and still in print. https://www.amazon.com/Peterson-Field-America-Guides-Hardcover/dp/0618966145

Help I need this book still: https://www.amazon.com/Human-Heredity-Principles-Issues-MindTap-ebook-dp-B00QXKGHLC/dp/B00QXKGHLC/ref=mt_kindle?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=

​

$5 paypal

You're being downvoted, but that is part of the premise of the book "the beast in the garden". The other part of the premise is that humans are moving into mountain lion's territory. Anyways, it's an interesting read and I highly recommend it: https://www.amazon.com/Beast-Garden-Predators-Suburban-America/dp/0393326349

Also if you are interested in learning more about buffalo here is a good read. I believe OP's picture is in the book as well as some other good ones.

Same-sex behavior is frequent in many animal species but an evolutionary benefit may not be immediately obvious. For example, you share about the same amount of genes with each parent, your siblings and your children. Therefore, if the cost of raising your own children was too high you'd have a higher chance of spreading at least some of your alleles by investing your resources in supporting your family instead (the theory behind this is called kin selection). What I'm trying to say is, sexual reproduction isn't the only possible way for you to spread your alleles in a population.

Also, sexual orientation (among many other traits, like general intelligence) is thought to be influenced by both genetic and environmental factors so saying that children can be rewired willy-nilly is just plain wrong.

source: molecular biology and psychology double major, parents are medical doctors.

edit: in case you're interested in evolutionary biology check out Evolutionary Analysis (or Human Evolutionary Genetics for humans in particular).

edit 2: How Children Develop is a nice book on Developmental Psychology and might be worth a look, too. However, I only read a translated version so your experience may differ.

I thought this portable grill was great. I don't own one, but it looks really versatile for camping and outdoorsy activities.
https://www.thegrommet.com/popup-grill-portable-grill

Not very 'organic' but these smartphone cases are really good for kayaking and being out in the weather. They are totally submersible, and you can still use it while its in the case including using headphones.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002SXMO88

If he's also into wildlife then something like this book on wildlife tracks could give an extra element to his hiking and camping.
http://www.amazon.com/Mammal-Tracks-Sign-American-Species/dp/0811726266

Error catastrophe is not the same as genetic entropy: they would look related to a layman, suggesting error catastrophe is the acute form.

However, like many forms of poisoning, the chronic form doesn't exist: there are mechanisms in play that prevent this, mechanisms ignored in his simulations -- and his H1N1 work redefines fitness in order to make the data fit his hypothesis.

But if you're willing to look past that, you might shell out $20 for his book. Real science isn't sold in $20 increments, however.

This is where I find creationism overlaps with conspiracy. He tells you there's a problem, then sells you a book on it.

---

Posted by: D***i

My comment had nothing to do with your argument.

It was about your formatting, which is atrocious, and a play off your username.

Here you go:

Oops, too much reality. Sometimes things are different in different places. The college dorm armchairs are in short supply in Sunderbans.

https://www.amazon.com/Man-Eating-Tigers-Sundarbans-Sy-Montgomery/dp/0618077049

I support villagers defending themselves in this large area in India. Blanket international rules and laws suck, and harm indigenous people. I support all locals hunting however they see fit.

>Tigers have always been associated with magic and other manifestations of the divine, but nowhere on earth do tigers make their power felt more tangibly than in Sundarbans, the world's largest tidal delta and mangrove swamp on the Bay of Bengal. Here, in this mysterious, amphibious realm, tigers hunt men, killing dozens, even hundreds a year.

https://www.amazon.com/Spell-Tiger-Man-Eaters-Sundarbans-Montgomery/dp/160358059X

If tigers roamed Paris or Stockholm or Madison WI, people would be shooting them to defend themselves,too.

Edit: I guess I'm the only one here who has read books on tigers.

Edit 2: No exceptions for locals or indigenous people. Everyone here wants to murder local tribal people.

Evolution occurs over many tens of to hundreds of thousands of years, and even then, at the scale of single proteins such as haemoglobin that you are talking about. The development of an entirely new organ in response to an environmental change occurring over one organism's lifetime is preposterous. Cancerous tumours do not suddenly turn into new organs that can metabolise carbon, go and read a book, specifically, if you are remotely interested: This and this. These are undergraduate level textbooks so even with as basic an understanding as you seem to have, you should be able to pick them up from the start if you stick with it. Your grandma isn't going to grow an extra arm because a new video game controller comes out that has 3 joy sticks and you want to play it, do you understand?

Not really. Professor John Sanford of Cornell U. is a genetic researcher and he became a Christian as a result of his studies of the human genome. The genetic evidence points to what we see in the Bible. So there is recent established academic work supporting what the Bible shows. There is a lot of info online about it. I'd check that out and if it really interests you, here's the book.

When we say "think" we usually mean "in a language." Dog's don't have language, so by that definition they don't think.

This is a sensitive topic. Lots of people desperately want to believe that animals think just like people do, and they get angry when anyone points out that actual science on the subject consistently shows that although animals do communicate, humans are the only animals with actual language. What passes for "language" with animals involves a few dozen "words" at most, and their "sentences" never have more than three words--usually just one or two. Attempts to teach language to animals have universally failed, and some of the gorilla-sign-language groups have engaged in what arguably amounts to fraud.

If you're interested in the topic, I really recommend "Are Dolphins Really Smart?: The mammal behind the myth," by Justin Gregg. Despite the title, it's not just about dolphins.

> Genetic Entropy presents compelling scientific evidence that the genomes of all living creatures are slowly degenerating - due to the accumulation of slightly harmful mutations. This is happening in spite of natural selection.

https://www.amazon.com/Genetic-Entropy-John-C-Sanford/dp/0981631606

My argument is about recessive mutations not being effected by natural selection, and not about slightly harmful mutations occurring in spite of natural selection.

Ok, let's check one of the claims of the video. The video claims John Sanford's work was featured in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Hmm:

http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1167048

And is Sanford a Creationist? Hmm:
https://www.amazon.com/Genetic-Entropy-John-C-Sanford/dp/0981631606/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1496295434&sr=8-1&keywords=genetic+entropy

And it is seems Dzugavili thinks he knows better than a Ivy League famous geneticist of 40 years. Dzugavili's counter to Sanford?

> I got a dick and balls.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateEvolution/comments/61xm6h/darwins_delusion_vs_death_of_the_fittest_or_i/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_attacks_in_the_Sundarbans
oops, too much reality. Sometimes things are different in different places.
The college dorm armchairs are in short supply in Sunderbans.
https://www.amazon.com/Man-Eating-Tigers-Sundarbans-Sy-Montgomery/dp/0618077049
I support villagers defending themselves in this large area in India.
Blanket international rules and laws suck, and harm indigenous people.
I support all locals hunting however they see fit.
''Tigers have always been associated with magic and other manifestations of the divine, but nowhere on earth do tigers make their power felt more tangibly than in Sundarbans, the world's largest tidal delta and mangrove swamp on the Bay of Bengal. Here, in this mysterious, amphibious realm, tigers hunt men, killing dozens, even hundreds a year. ''
https://www.amazon.com/Spell-Tiger-Man-Eaters-Sundarbans-Montgomery/dp/160358059X
If tigers roamed Paris or Stockholm or Madison WI, people would be shooting them to defend themselves,too.
Edit: I guess I'm the only one here who has read books on tigers.
Edit 2: http://www.tigersincrisis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/India_Wild_Life_Protection_Amendment_Act__2006_Act_No._39_of_2006.pdf
No exceptions for locals or indigenous people. Everyone here wants to murder local tribal people. The Blood thirst here among you is zombie level, kill everyone, mayhem.