Quotations about animals that are worth remembering

gentle lemur

gentle lemur

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
"Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars, and so on - whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins believed themselves to be more intelligent than Man for precisely the same reasons."

- Douglas Adams
 
"The number of humble-bees in any district depends in a great degree on the number of field-mice..." - Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species

It's just so lovely and Darwinish and also we 100% should start calling them humble-bees again.
 
There is a story, possibly apocryphal, of the distinguished British biologist, J.B.S. Haldane, who found himself in the company of a group of theologians. On being asked what one could conclude as to the nature of the Creator from a study of his creation, Haldane is said to have answered, “An inordinate fondness for beetles.”
Click to expand...

1959 May-June, The American Naturalist, “Homage to Santa Rosalia or Why Are There So Many Kinds of Animals?” by G. E. Hutchinson, Page 146, Volume XCIII, Number 870.
 
DavidBrown said:
1959 May-June, The American Naturalist, “Homage to Santa Rosalia or Why Are There So Many Kinds of Animals?” by G. E. Hutchinson, Page 146, Volume XCIII, Number 870.
Click to expand...

I hadn't realised that was only attributed to Haldane. I had erroneously thought Haldane had actually formally said it or written it somewhere. Good to know!
 
I don't know why we haven't thought to include anything from the master of acute
observation and vivid metaphor, with a small pinch of benevolent anthropomorphism on top. I refer, of course, to the late Gerald Durrell :D
Any of his books could yield several splendid examples, but here are two of my favourites.
Describing how female gorilla Nandi reacted when she first saw male Jambo 'the same way as a teenage girl might if her favourite pop star suddenly walked into her bedroom, clad in nothing but a guitar' from The Stationary Ark. That may seem a little too strong for contemporary tastes, but if you've ever seen gorillas mating, you will appreciate the precision of its imagery.
And I can never see a binturong without recalling that its appearance 'suggests a badly made hearthrug, to one of which has been attached a curiously oriental-like head with long ear-tufts', from Menagerie Manor.
 
I am just re-reading Douglas Adams' fantastic book Last chance to see and is filled with fantastic descriptions of animals (and a zoochatter) like this:

"[The kakapo] is an extremely fat bird. A good-sized adult will weigh about six or seven pounds, and its wings are just about good for waggling a bit if it thinks it's about to trip over something — but flying is out of the question. Sadly, however, it seems that not only has the kakapo forgotten how to fly, but it has forgotten that it has forgotten how to fly. Apparently a seriously worried kakapo will sometimes run up a tree and jump out of it, whereupon it flies like a brick and lands in a graceless heap on the ground."
 
One of my favourite quotes is one by William T. Hornaday in the article “Gorillas, Past and Present”
(Bulletin of the New York Zoological Society; 1915)

“There is not the slightest reason to hope that an adult gorilla, male or female, ever will be seen living in a zoological park or garden”.
 
This one is not really an animal quote, but one on conservation in general. But this is one my favorite nature related quotes of all time:

"What a thousand acres of Silphium looked like when it tickled the bellies of the buffalo is a question never again to be answered, and perhaps not even asked".
-Aldo Leopold
 
"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."

- Mahatma Gandhi
 
gentle lemur said:
Describing how female gorilla Nandi reacted when she first saw male Jambo 'the same way as a teenage girl might if her favourite pop star suddenly walked into her bedroom, clad in nothing but a guitar' from The Stationary Ark. That may seem a little too strong for contemporary tastes, but if you've ever seen gorillas mating, you will appreciate the precision of its imagery.
Click to expand...

It is still an accurate description- watching video of an introduction at Berlin this week, one female was behaving in very similar fashion.
 
Batto said:
Theoretically, you could touch every animal species. Once.

Batto (2018)

My standard reply to a repeatly raised question at WdG.
Click to expand...

Something that rather proves our sense of humour has some overlap, as I have been known to make similar jokes from time to time :P most recently when someone I work with showed me a photo of some tomato-like berries they saw growing in a hedgerow when walking their dog, and asked whether they were edible. They were Atropa belladonna :P

I was actually slightly envious, as I have never actually seen Deadly Nightshade "in the wild" myself.
 
Batto said:
Theoretically, you could touch every animal species. Once.

Batto (2018)

My standard reply to a repeatly raised question at WdG.
Click to expand...

On a field excursion from a biodiversity course, one of my fellow students asked the teacher "can I eat this plant?" His reaction was "you can eat every plant, but some you can only eat once."

We ended up tasting lots of wild plants that day. And I'm still alive.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top