Culture illustrated by Camille de Cussac

Culture illustrated

By camille de cussac

To support our Better Together collection theme, we asked illustrator Camille de Cussac to put facts and anecdotes about the living world into images.

"Man is not the only animal that thinks, but he is the only one to think that he is not an animal".

La plus belle histoire du langage, Pascal Picq, palaeoanthropologist

Intensive livestock farming is in permanent breach of French law. Since 1976, article L.214 of the French Rural Code has stipulated that "all animals, being sentient beings, must be kept by their owners in conditions compatible with the biological requirements of their species".

"There are more similarities between pigs and humans than between rats and mice".

Alan Archibald, généticien

Sheep, like chickens, have a memory that enables them to recognise up to a hundred of their fellow creatures in addition to humans.

Karl Von Frisch, renowned ethologist and winner of the 1973 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine, has discovered what is known as the "bee dance". On returning to their hive, bees not only indicate to their fellow bees the location of new flowers, but also the quantity of food available.

Are humans the only species with self-awareness? To find out, place a colored mark on an animal's head and observe its behavior when placed in front of a mirror. If it reacts to the mark, for example, by trying to touch it, we conclude that it understands that the reflection in the mirror is its own. Among those who pass the test are the bottlenose dolphin, the chimpanzee, the Asian elephant, the pig, the manta ray, the chattering magpie... and human children aged 18 months and over.

Examples of mutualism between humans and wild animals are rare. There is one example in sub-Saharan Africa of cooperation between a bird species, the great indicator, and honey hunters. The former, feeding on beeswax, know the positions of the hives in the trees. The latter, equipped with the necessary tools, hunt the bees, harvest the honey and leave the wax for the indicators.

There's something superhuman about some world records. For example, Julius Maddox, world bench press champion, lifts 350 kg, i.e. one and a half times his own weight. An impressive feat. But when you consider that the Bull Dung Beetle, on the other hand, can pull up to 1141 times his own weight (equivalent to a 70kg person towing 80 tonnes), it puts things into perspective. So would the latter be superhuman?

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way animals are treated."

Gandhi

When they sleep, hens enter a phase known as "REM sleep", with rapid eye movement (REM): they can dream, just like human beings.