Becoming a Tiger: How Baby Animals Learn to Live in the Wild – A Scientific Exploration of Intelligence and Survival

by Susan McCarthy

From the co–author of the New York Times bestseller When Elephants Weep comes a book that uses true stories backed by scientific research to explore the way young animals discover their worlds and learn how to survive. How does a baby animal figure out how to get around in the world? How much of what animals know is instinctive, and how much must they learn? In Becoming a Tiger , bestselling author Susan McCarthy addresses these intriguing matters, presenting fascinating and funny examples of animal behaviour in the laboratory and in the wild. McCarthy shows us how baby animals transform themselves from clueless kittens, clumsy cubs, or scrawny chicks into efficient predators, successful foragers, or deft nest–builders. From geese to mice, dolphins to orang–utans, bats to (of course) tigers, McCarthy's warm, amusing, and insightful examinations of animal life and developments provides a surprising window into the mental worlds of our fine fuzzy, furred, finned, and feathered friends. oReaders will be fascinated by a close look at animal intelligence, learning, and family life.

Genres: Animals, Nonfiction, Science, Nature, Wildlife, Adult

432 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2004

Reviews

[Petra X · Rating 5 out of 5]

Generally speaking I only like hard science books on animal behaviour and so I put off reading this for a while because I thought it would be fluffy stories of sweet little animals. It didn't help that the author often collaborates on books with Jeffrey Moussaieff, the master of the fluffy animal behavioural tome. However, one day, without any new book to read I thought I would give it a try. It was amazing!

The problem with the strictly-scientific animal behaviour books is that the research is generally done in laboratories where the animal lives an extremely deprived life. The problems it is expected to solve are ones that interest people, not necessarily ones that interest a bored animal. (Or person for that matter. I was recently reading of an experiment where the pigeons who got the answers right were rewarded with seeds to eat. They did a lot better than the test group of students who were only rewarded by a sound. Perhaps the students would have scored better given an M&M or gummy bear).

However, if an animal behaviour book is based solely on field and anectodal observation it has a tendency to be tainted with anthropomorphism. Hence my dislike for the overly-emotional Moussaieff books.

This often-amusing and very easy to read book is a mixture of hard science and scientist-gathered field observation and anecdotal reportage. Thus we learn that although gorillas when tested in a laboratory do not recognise themselves in mirrors, one gorilla who had not only a mirror but a video camera and monitor in his room could certainly recognise himself. He liked to eat his food up close to the camera and watch himself in the monitor. Further, he liked to shine a torch down his throat directly under the camera whilst looking in the monitor. Certainly this gorilla could identify himself and perhaps this means that all previous tests on gorillas have been badly-designed. Without this anecdotal information I would forever be thinking that gorillas couldn't recognise themselves.

Each section of the book moves along rapidly, each paragraph contains a gem of research or reportage, everything from the high problem solving abilities of the cannibalistic portia spider to the strange lengths humans sometimes go to in experiments. (In order for Whooping Cranes to avoid imprinting on people, the experimenters dressed up in crane suits, fed the birds with dummy cranes and when leading them on their first migration, the pilot of the plane was dressed in a crane suit too).

If you only ever read one book on animal behaviour and intelligence, make it this one, you will enjoy it. But then, this will hook you so much, it won't be your only one. Now I have to find more books by Susan McCarthy, she's got me hooked.

[Brittany · Rating 2 out of 5]

How I Came To Read This Book: My Uncle sends me a (random-ish) book for Christmas every year, I think this one came in 2008.

The Plot: Susan McCarthy has done her homework, going through literally hundreds of volumes (the 50+ pages of citations and the bibliography prove as much) of work to come up with this compendium that covers animal behaviour from social communities to hunting and being hunted to tool use and intelligence. Although the subtitle of the book suggests that it's focused on baby animals, the book actually looks at a number of species from youth to seniorhood, with baby animals coming into play when studying innate behaviours, families, and mating. The book tends to skew towards focusing on big cats, primates, birds, and cetaceans, but it does cover a huge range of animals.

The Good & The Bad: My main issue with this book is the lack of focus and structure both across the book as a whole and within each chapter. The huge number of subtitles in each sweeping chapter makes for a broken, unconnected narrative when they could have been threaded together much more smoothly to drive home a point or two more clearly. Rather than cement any cognitive connections in my mind, the book is very scattered and vague in its purpose, which unfortunately makes it a bit of a chore to read as one whole volume.

That being said, people with an interest in zoology or animal psychology would be well served to have this book sitting on their bookshelf for frequent reference - it's like a virtual highlight reel on animal observation and experimentation on a slew of subjects. Additionally, McCarthy's style makes this a light-hearted, manageable read with plenty of quirky, nerdy wit to spice things up as she offers humorous commentary throughout. She also manages to take many of these stories and imbue them with some warmth, particularly with stories where the animals have names, it makes for some heartwarming (or heartbreaking) tales throughout.

One final caveat - if you've got any kind of disposition regarding cruelty to animals, you might get squeamish by many of the experiments in the book, which were they performed on humans, come off as psychological torture. Although McCarthy often gently pokes fun at the scientists by accusing them of 'meddling' in the normal ways of the animals involved, she never fully condemns them (likely being part of their ranks), although she does talk about the often sad conditions experimental animals live in.

The Bottom Line: Best served as a reference book for those with a passionate interest in the subject.

Anything Memorable?: Nope

50-Book Challenge: Book #1 in 2010

[Dylan]

Random #156,137

This is a book about how animals learn, told through a whole bunch of short examples from scientists' research. This does mean that the book can feel a bit bullet-pointy, but I found that this didn't really detract from the reading experience. It was instead more like an endless (my one criticism of this book is that it slightly overstayed its welcome, but only slightly) stream of appetizers, except it's your brain and not your stomach and you can't get sick on too much knowledge, am I right kids?

[Ed Stoddard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was on my shelf for far too long - almost 19 years in fact and ir was a gift from my late step father. I learned a lot from it and can see two decades later where many of the current debates around "animal culture" were taking off.
One quibble would be the narrative thrust of the book. In some ways it reads like a string of anecdotes and snapshots of animal learning and behaviour that do not quite mesh together as a whole. I think it would have benefited from a more focused rather than scatter gun approach. Having said that, it still holds valuable insights and I think I profited from reading it after two decades because it provided me with some historical insights into animal studies more broadly.
And McCarthy can certainly be humorous and engaging.

[erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to love this book, but it just didn't hold my attention enough. The stories were interesting and usually quite charming, but very anecdotal - McCarthy jumps quickly from one concept and one animal family to the next - good for reading on the bus, but not engaging enough to make me want to pick up this volume and read it for hours at a time. That said, we could all learn a lot by studying other species and having a greater appreciation for the mastery of nature at work around us.

[Pat · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really disappointed in this book. I thought it would be a well-told book about how baby animals grow up in the wild and become adults. Well, you could say it is except that it is like reading an encyclopedia. There are a series of topics and a series of short examples of how different animals, insects, reptiles, etc., move through that part of the learning process. After a while, it gets completely tedious.

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great premise but no unifying theme, so it's kind of disjointed and redundant. She gives a ton of snippets about animal behavior, and runs the gamut in terms of species and scenarios. Might be a great commute book -- the short sections lend themselves to quick bursts of reading.

[Anson Cassel Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

Becoming a Tiger is really about animal behavior of all sorts, instinctual as well as learned, that of adult animals as well as of young. The book is completely understandable picked up anywhere and with no knowledge of what came before or interest in what comes after. What McCarthy has done is given us a series of short animal behavior stories taken from scientific literature but run through her considerable wit and sprightly--even sassy--literary style. The author has a thesis of sorts, but the true message of this book is that anyone who believes animal behavior to be simplistic or consistent across species is ridiculously mistaken and that no one will ever go broke betting on the complexity of the natural world.

[Olivier · Rating 1 out of 5]

The topic sounds exciting yet the book is unfortunately a bit boring. It is a 350-page succession of independent anecdotes grouped by broad topics ("finding food", "recognizing peers" etc)

[Cassy Flint · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant book for wildlife rehabilitation and the whole nurture vs. nature debate. Easy to read and riveting. Also a compelling read for those interested in human development.

[Luci · Rating 3 out of 5]

great for behavioral science, a little too much for me.

[Yune · Rating 4 out of 5]

A re-read, because I adore this writer's playful voice. She has wonderful footnotes:

"By the time Griffin [an African grey parrot:] was 33 weeks old, his food preferences were clear. He was not wild about pellets of bird chow, but he loved cashews.*

"*I am the same way."

The results of many experiments and summaries of many observations are crammed into this book, but the pacing is such that I never felt overwhelmed or rushed or unsatisfied. (I was wondering why the series of anecdotes worked for me here, when they didn't with Sacks's Musicophilia; I think with that one, I was left still wondering, whereas with McCarthy's book I was led to at least some sort of conclusion.)

Ranges across animal learning, which sounds dry, but is presented in the most delightful manner.

[Kirsten · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're looking for animal party trivia, look no further! This book has plenty of interesting anecdotes about learning in animals. Primates, birds, cetaceans, invertebrates, and more - just about every major group is covered somewhere! The author has an engaging writing style which never really seems to come across as dry.



If I have one real complaint about this book, it's that there's no real logical "flow" to it. The stories seem to jumble together, only loosely grouped into categories for the sake of chapters. It makes it hard to really retain any of the information, because it just feels like an overload without any sense to it.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I agree with the reviewer who said this book was choppy; it consists of short vignettes and anecdotes about animals learning, loosely arranged in sections that detail how infants learn to recognize their mothers, how they learn what's safe to eat, and so on. It's not comprehensive, in spite of its length, but it's often informative and often both amusing and charming. In short, it's not a book you can read cover to cover in one sitting, but it's a real pleasure to dip into. If you like animals and/or animal stories, you will find something to enjoy. There are also pointers to other books; I now want to read about the South African family who raised the young lion!

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not only is it incredibly interesting, reading about what different animals know from instinct and what they learn, and how they learn it, but at times the book is downright funny, especially for a scientific non-fiction book. If all textbooks were written like this, learning would be so much easier because the facts would stick in your head. And, perhaps best of all, since there's no plot, you don't have to read the whole book to enjoy it -- just as much as you want, though you might end up reading the whole thing anyway.

[Emily · Rating 1 out of 5]

I finally finished this book months after starting it. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. While the facts are interesting, the book is poorly written. The author clearly thinks that her little jokes and quips are funny, when in reality, they are nothing more than obnoxious. There is no flow to the book and it is very difficult to read. This is a book that had the potential to be very interesting and flopped miserably for me.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is pretty perfect if all you want are some cute animal stories without them getting overly sappy or emotional. I really enjoyed the stories and the format they were presented in, with new stories every few paragraphs or so. The author has a funny and engaging sense of humor, which lends itself well to talking about cute animals. It is a difficult book to sit and read all the way through at once though - it would be a good bathroom, coffee table, or commute book.

[Jaime · Rating 4 out of 5]

Feb. 2010: I have this book on my bathroom counter where I can read a few pages while brushing my teeth or blow-drying my hair. I find the text, which is adorable in style but somewhat disjointed in organization, lends itself best to this sporadic manner of reading. I am enjoying the book very much, not least because it gets me through the drying of my hair. I *hate* drying my hair....

[Kendra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun read, though long. Author tries to stick with basic facts, and how scientists perceive how animals learn without allowing the "evil" of athopomorphism to intrude. Lots of stories from basic learning, communication, invention, parenting etc. Author co-wrote When Elephants Weep, another favorite of mine.

[Kristina Wojtaszek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Susan McCarthy's humor keeps the research fun, and many of the examples of animal intellect or social abilities are amazing. Most people have heard of the memories of elephants or the sign language learning primates--- but she gives examples of bats, fish, cranes and so many other species along with the primates, cetaceans and more common predators. A very insightful book!

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read. Very interesting answers to questions on how animals learn things vs. what is instinctual. How do birds know what kind of bird they are, how do animals choose mates, how do birds learn to sing "songs", are rabbits born to zig-zag instead of running in a straight line and many other topics you probably never thought about.

[Laylah Hunter]

Not really feeling it. The way the text just skipped from one example to the next in a sentence or two left me feeling sort of frustrated; there wasn't enough depth for me. Nothing really wrong with it, but I didn't feel any need to renew it instead of just taking it back to the library when the due date came up.

[Rebel Hoffman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is just about one of my all time favorites. I prefer books on animal behavior to be heavily anecdotal, and Becoming a Tiger doesn't disappoint in this arena. Susan McCarthy has the best sense of humor! I love her stories and the footnotes are hilarious.

[Patti · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an interesting book but a little pm the dry side. The author throws some witty comments in but it doesn't help. The facts are interesting just the was they are presented is is little technical

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the stories were interesting, it wasn't as scientific as I hoped it would be and didn't really address the "how".

[Joni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book is soo much fun. I wish all non fiction and scientific books are like this. Its so much fun and I learned a lot.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun read.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting, but reads more like a textbook.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting and readable, especially due to the numerous examples of different animals learning in different ways.