Animal Innovation

'The editors have succeeded in putting innovation well and truly on the map as a phenomenon to be reckoned with. They provide a series of outstanding questions that demand answers, and the book will stimulate further research efforts.' - Nature

'Innovation has likely been a significant causal force in the evolution of many species. This book provides a wide-ranging and up-to-date review of an important phenomenon.' - Henry Plotkin, Professor of Psychobiology, University College, London, UK.

'Over the past 20 years, as scientists have conducted increasingly detailed, long-term studies of animals, they have come to know their subjects' behaviour so well that they can state with confidence when a truly novel innovation has appeared. Animal Innovation offers the first attempt to analyse such discoveries in a careful, scientific manner. The volume is filled with wonderful examples - strikingly innovative behaviours by species ranging from guppies to chimpanzees... Observing an animal do something it has never done before is genuinely exciting. Animal Innovation offers the equally exciting prospect of studying such creative behaviour scientifically.' - Robert Seyfarth, Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, USA.

'Innovation - the Mother of All Culture - has been curiously neglected for decades, in part because no one really knew how to study it. Now, at last, we do, and this book shows how it should be done and documents the surprising advances that have been made in just a few years.' - Carel van Schaik, Professor/Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Biological Anthropology and Anatomy, Duke University, USA.