KINGDOM OF PLAY

An appraisal of how and why certain animals play and how it correlates to biology on Earth.

Toomey, author of Weird Life and Stormchasers, turns his inquisitive eye to the curious ways animal species entertain themselves. He examines a series of animals from across the globe, each with unique playtime routines that are both fascinating and scientifically reflective of the natural habitats, cultures, and neurochemistry of the animal kingdom at large. Among the ethological research investigations Toomey explores is the anomaly of a young female octopus at the Seattle Aquarium thoroughly engaged with moving a small medicine bottle with her arms and water funnels; the “play fighting” of Kalahari meerkat pups; and the “chasing and wrestling” of Alaskan brown bears. The author postulates that the repetitive nature of these animals’ activities signals pleasurable distraction, a desire for excitement, and a playful form of social bonding, but ethologists can only hypothesize on this theory. Other scientists Toomey cites—e.g., Gordon Burghardt, author of The Genesis of Animal Play—have sought a general definition of “nonfunctional” voluntary animal play that could be applied to species that exhibited these behaviors but also to those animals incorrectly assumed to be incapable of play. Elsewhere, Toomey spotlights studies scrutinizing the “curious porcine behavior” in Edinburgh, Scotland’s experimental Pig Park; the oddity of belly-flopping juvenile male monkeys at a Calgary zoo; and the puzzling evolution of play fighting behaviors among rats, which, one neuroscientist observed, has little to do with fighting at all but rather enhances social competency, reduces stress, and defuses potential conflicts. The author includes sections on animal sleep cycles, which prove equally intriguing. Closing each chapter, Toomey intelligently analyzes how particular aspects of animal play behavior also characterize Darwin’s theory of natural selection.

A lively, informative, and scientifically entertaining animal behavior study.