Very few of us will ever get the chance to see the most remarkable of our planet’s fauna in nature. In order to gaze in wonder up the impossibly long neck of a giraffe, or be awed by the sheer bulk of an elephant, or to make eye contact with a chimpanzee, or hear the full-throated roar of a lion, our only option, usually, is to pay a visit to the zoo. Natural science writer Janine Benyus has given us a precious resource, a thorough and detailed description to aid our deeper understanding. She takes us methodically through the full repertoire of sounds and signals and behaviours of twenty creatures she has studied from the poles to the Equator and even the oceans. Through this book, we come to know not just how to interpret what we see them doing at the zoo, but who they would be—and how they would be—if we were to meet them on their own home ground.