Kingdom of Play

What Ball-bouncing Octopuses, Belly-flopping Monkeys, and Mud-sliding Elephants Reveal about Life Itself

David Toomey

• Publisher: Scribner
• Year: 2024
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781982154486
• Subtopic: Animal & Comparative Psychology
• Index: Biological Sciences

This “delightful…compelling” (Scientific American) and revelatory look at the science behind why animals play “will fill you with joy and wonder” (Sy Montgomery, author of The Soul of an Octopus).

Acclaimed science writer David Toomey takes us on a fast-paced and entertaining tour of playful animals and the scientists who study them. From octopuses on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef to meerkats in the Kalahari Desert to brown bears on Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, we follow adventurous researchers as they design and conduct experiments seeking answers to new, intriguing questions: When did play first appear in animals? How does play develop the brain, and how did it evolve? Are the songs and aerial acrobatics of birds the beginning of avian culture? Is fairness in dog play the foundation of canine ethics? And does play direct and possibly accelerate evolution?

Monkeys belly flop, dolphins tail-walk, elephants mud-slide, crows dive-bomb, and octopuses bounce balls. These activities are various, but all are play, and as Toomey explains, animal play can be defined as a distinct behavior that is ongoing and open-ended, purposeless and provisional—rather like natural selection. Through a close examination of both natural selection and play, Toomey argues that life itself is fundamentally playful.

A “lively, informative, and scientifically entertaining animal behavior study” (Kirkus Reviews) Kingdom of Play is an illuminating—and yes, playful—look at a little-known aspect of the animal kingdom.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Ball-Bouncing Octopuses: What Is Play?
• Chapter 2: The Kalahari Meerkat Project: The Hypotheses of Play
• Chapter 3: Tumbling Piglets and Somersaulting Monkeys: Training for the Unexpected
• Chapter 4: “Let’s Go Tickle Some Rats”: The Neuroscience of Play
• Chapter 5: Courtly Canines: Competing to Cooperate and Cooperating to Compete
• Chapter 6: Wood Thrush Songs, Herring Gull Drop-Catching, and Bowerbird Art: Play as the Roots of Culture
• Chapter 7: Memes and Dreams: Dreaming as Playing without a Body
• Chapter 8: The Evolution of Play
• Chapter 9: Innovative Gorillas: The Surprising Role of Play in Natural Selection
• Chapter 10: Playing Animal
• Epilogue: Play, Life, and Everything
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Copyright