An immense world : how animal senses reveal the hidden realms around us / Ed Yong.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [361]-429) and index.

The only true voyage -- Leaking sacks of chemicals : smells and tastes -- Endless ways of seeing : light -- Rurple, grurple, yurple : color -- The unwanted sense : pain -- So cool : heat -- A rough sense : contact and flow -- The rippling ground : surface vibrations -- All ears : sound -- A silent world shouts back : echoes -- Living batteries : electric fields -- They know the way : magnetic fields -- Every window at once : uniting the senses -- Save the quiet, preserve the dark : threatened sensescapes.

"The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. In An Immense World, Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses to encounter beetles that are drawn to fires, turtles that can track the Earth's magnetic fields, fish that fill rivers with electrical messages, and even humans who wield sonar like bats. We discover that a crocodile's scaly face is as sensitive as a lover's fingertips, that the eyes of a giant squid evolved to see sparkling whales, that plants thrum with the inaudible songs of courting bugs, and that even simple scallops have complex vision. We learn what bees see in flowers, what songbirds hear in their tunes, and what dogs smell on the street. We listen to stories of pivotal discoveries in the field, while looking ahead at the many mysteries that remain unsolved." --publisher's website.