Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

I loved Aesop's Fables as a child and still have a tatty old copy of the book on my shelf. Read often and then again to my own child, I believed in the morality stories and saw them as an ancient type of parable. I was aware, as I grew older, that the animals were personified in order to make the stories more appealing - but I also believed that this was the character of the animals as well. So the stereotype behaviour of the wily fox or the clever crow may well have borne from Aesop thousands of years ago, or are they actually true depictions of these beasts? That was the purpose of this book.

Jo Wimpenny is a zoologist and studied the behaviour of the animals in the fables, using known research and new studies. There are lots of psychological studies in there as well, such as Pavlov's Dog, to help explain behaviour and how scientists try to define intelligence. The book also covers tool use, self-recognition, imitation, planning, deception and co-operation and whether the scientific evidence backs the characteristics of the chosen animal for a selection of tales - or perhaps another animal would be better cast.

Although this is science heavy, it is written in a way that makes it a very accessible book to the layman. The various studies are fascinating even if sometimes they wander slightly off-topic, they are always interesting, lively and entertaining. Appealing to lovers of animals, mythology, science and particularly psychology, this is a great read. We can see that we share a lot with animals so maybe using them to explain our own behaviours isn't so odd after all.

I loved how this book was written. It would set out the fable and then analyse deeply how close to the truth the fable was. Therefore why it is a good book was two fold - it gave you a knowledge of the fables but also a scientific analysis

My very first bedtime story memories are of Aesop’s Fables - and they remained my favourites ever since.

If you’ve ever read them, you’ll know that they were not based on animal behaviours - the logic and lesson behind the tales are linked to human behaviours, and how humans would react in a certain situation.

This book explores the animals’ true sides and whether any of these tales are accurate, based on animal behaviours.

It was an enjoyable read, and I think any fans of the original fables would find this an interesting book.

I enjoyed reading about the experiments performed to test whether the fables were correct, and how they did various different tests to ensure correlation and the reliability of the data, but I struggled with the way the author has written this book. It seemed to wander from one thought to the next with little correlation between the 2 points. For example in the first chapter we're looking at crows, when she suddenly goes off on a tangent about chimps and the evolutionary theory etc before eventually coming back to the topic at hand. I must admit I didn't get all the way to the end as I found it too hard to follow her train of thought, though I did appreciate the references to the experiments so the data could be checked, and the informal language used

If you are interested in human behaviour you’ll know animals are often studied to better understand ourselves. Zoologist Jo Wimpenny has written a great book ‘Aesop’s Animals: The Science Behind the Fables’ to explore the true character traits of animals versus our inbuilt pre-conceptions of them. When many animals are threatened it’s even more important to have an understanding of them, and exploring animal minds helps us to understand our own place in the world.

The author explores many psychological aspects of human behaviour in relation to animals such as confirmation bias when jumping to conclusions both about animal traits and particular groups of people. The fables are based on human traits so what better way to understand ourselves than to explore their true behaviour.