Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death

by Susana Monsó

How animals conceive of death and dying--and what it can teach us about our own relationships with mortality

When the opossum feels threatened, she becomes paralyzed. Her body temperature plummets, her breathing and heart rates drop to a minimum, and her glands simulate the smell of a putrefying corpse. Playing Possum explores what the opossum and other creatures can teach us about how we and other species understand mortality,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691260761
• ISBN13: 9780691260761
• Release Date: October 2024
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.5" x 8.6"