Great courses (DVD)

Consists of 24 lectures / 30 minutes per lecture

Disc 1. What do zoologists do? -- Animal reproduction: genes and environment -- Mammal reproduction: pandas and cheetahs -- How animals raise their young -- Helpful corals, clams, and crustaceans -- Bees, butterflies, and saving biodiversity -- Disc 2. Deadly invertebrates: vectors and parasites -- Bony fish, skates, sharks, and rays -- Amphibians, metamorphosis, and ecology -- Reptiles: adaptations for living on land -- Beaks, claws, and eating like a bird -- Form and function: bird nests and eggs -- Disc 3. Taking to the sky: bird migration -- What makes a mammal? hair, milk and teeth -- Herbivore mammals: ruminants and runners -- Carnivore mammals: feline, canine, and ursine -- Primate mammals: diverse forest dwellers -- Size, structure, and metabolism -- Disc 4. Protection, support, and homeostasis -- Animal energetics and the giant panda problem -- Ethology: studying animal behavior -- Think! how intelligent are animals? -- Combating disease in the animal kingdom -- Animal futures: frontiers in zoology

The Great Courses teams up with the Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, to take you behind the scenes of the animal world. This introduction to zoology brings you up close and personal with a breathtaking variety of animal species through the eyes of a trained zoologist. Throughout these lectures, you'll explore the fundamentals of zoology (including the relationship between genetics and environment), dive into the different orders of life on our planet (from the ocean depths to the highest tree tops), and investigate special subjects intriguing today's zoologists (including animal behavior and conservation). You'll also meet some of most incredible animals on Earth: butterflies, bears, crocodiles, tigers, giant pandas, elephants, gorillas, and more. And thanks to exclusive footage from the Smithsonian's National Zoo, you'll be able to see these animals in action, up close and without the crowds

Course guidebook contains bibliographical references

Course No. 1266

Lecturer: Dr. Donald E. Moore III, Director Oregon Zoo; Senior science advisor, Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute

DVD