In general, humans have long pictured themselves as separate from nature, but one of the lessons that we repeatedly learn when we study animal behavior is that animals are much more like us than we ever imagined, and we are much more like them than we had thought.

Wit penetrates; humor envelops. Wit is a function of verbal intelligence; humor is imagination operating on good nature.

The whale spit fish at the surface of the pool and then sank below and waited. The gull came down to get the fish, and the whale grabbed it.

[One study involved killer whales at Marineland in Niagara Falls in Ontario, Canada. An inventive male devised a brand new way to catch birds, and passed the strategy on to his tank-mates. The 4-year-old orca lures gulls into his tank by spitting regurgitated fish onto the water's surface. He waits below for a gull to grab the fish, then lunges at it with open jaws.] They are in a way setting a trap, ... They catch three or four gulls this way some days.

It looked liked one was watching while the other tried,

The basic rule of human nature is that powerful people speak slowly and subservient people quickly -because if they don't speak fast nobody will listen to them.