Barbara J. King

This week, I’d like to pose a question to readers: Have you observed animals (of any species) acting in ways that surprised or moved you? Ways that indicated a remarkable depth of intelligence or feeling?

I’d like to restrict this poll to only actions or events that you yourself have observed, rather (more…)

A new study published online at Animal Behaviour by primatologists Marion Laporte and Klaus Zuberbuhler at the University of St. Andrews shows us how much we still can learn about chimpanzee behavior, even in this 50th-anniversary year of Jane Goodall’s research. Focusing on communication, Laporte and Zuberbuhler studied the pant-grunt, a vocalization that (more…)

In the last few weeks in Gloucester County, Virginia-- where I live, across the river from the famous Yorktown Battlefield—-friends and acquaintances report that they’re losing pets and cared-for feral cats to coyote attacks. I trust these sources, and the reports are coming from various parts of our semi-rural county, so (more…)

I love that rush of wow! that comes with discovering an exciting journal article about animals, and animal-human bonding.

This week, in reading Pennsylvania State University anthropologist Pat Shipman’s latest work, I got just such a rush. In the August issue of Current Anthropology, Shipman argues that, in addition to the making (more…)

This week, the Daily Press, one of the larger papers in my area of southeastern Virginia, published an op-ed I wrote. Here it is, doubling as this week's blog:

Wednesday, July 14, marked the 50th anniversary of Jane Goodall's stepping onto the shores of Lake Tanganyika at Gombe in Tanzania, East Africa, to observe wild (more…)

For the primate enthusiast, it’s easy enough to fixate on the alpha species: the baboons, chimpanzees, gorillas and bonobos favored by many primatologists and film crews. Relentlessly self-oriented, Homo sapiens enjoys a close look in the mirror—evolutionary or otherwise—so it’s no accident that these popular monkeys and apes are among (more…)

One can never walk the same national-park trail twice.

I’ve adapted this line from Heraclitus, who, around 500 B.C., uttered the to-be-famous “You cannot step into the same river twice.” That sentiment is even more elegant when applied to walking the diverse and wondrous trails of the American national park system.

Despite my (more…)