Welcome to the field guide to your species, aka Homo sapiens. A strange mammal, it mates remarkably often, eats to the point of undermining its own health and marks territory with doors, fences and garden gnomes. It thinks of itself as complex, intelligent, and superior in every way to other animals – but is it, really?

Hannah Holmes surveys the evidence. Drawing on fascinating parallels from the animal kingdom she shows that cheating on your partner makes you smarter, evolution makes you lie to your mother, and that we may not be as unique as we seem to think.