Desmond Morris Quotes

All beasts of prey are strong or treacherous.

You're a good example of why some animals eat their young.

I have seen Tasmanian devils battle over a carcass. I have seen lionesses crowding a kill, dingoes on the trail of a feral piglet, and adult croc thrashing its prey to pieces. But never, in all the animal world, have I witnessed anything to match the casual cruelty of the human being.

As Darwin puts it in The Descent of Man, 'Male snakes, though appearing so sluggish, are amorous.' Isn't that just like Darwin? It was one of his main ideas, you know, that the males of almost all animals have stronger passions than the females. Since then we've learned a thing or two. At any rate, the female snake is right there when spring arrives in the woods.

There are so many spiders, and their rituals, their mating rituals, their courtship ritual, can be very, very different.

Life histories tell you just about everything you need to know about an animal.

Any dog, you put him in the corner, no matter if they're vicious or not, they're going to bite back.

The wolf asketh not how many the sheep may be.

Normally for me, it's not interesting. When do you see in the jungle, female fighters fighting each other? I mean it's not human nature.

The chimps' way of aggression is quick and brutal. I compare them to gang attacks.

The fox when it sees a flock of herons or magpies or birds of that kind, suddenly flings himself on the ground with his mouth open to look as he were dead; and these birds want to peck at his tongue, and he bites off their heads.

Every animal on the planet attracts mates with the goal of reproduction. Frogs swell their bodies. Male gorillas beat their chests. Have you ever watched a male lobster rise up on the tips of his legs and snap his claws, demanding female attention? Attraction is the first element of all animal reproduction, humans included

There's only so many times you can kick a dog before it turns viscous. (Julian)

Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it; let's do it, let's fall in love.

Evvy: "Is she going to eat Jooba-hooba? She looks like she's going to bite him, at least." Briar: "No — if she bit him, he'd die.

There were only so many kicks a dog could take before it turned vicious.’ (Acheron)

Much hostile and aggressive behaviour among animals is the expression of social insecurity.

The fangs of a bear, and the tusks of a wild boar, do not bite worse and make deeper gashes than a goose-quill sometimes; no, not even the badger himself, who is said to be so tenacious of his bite that he will not give over his hold till he feels his teeth meet and the bones crack.

If you hit a kangaroo in the street and you have to pull out on the side of the road, it can get back up and murder you.

The cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf.

Man is too near all kinds of beasts,--a fawning dog, a roaring lion, a thieving fox, a robbing wolf, a dissembling crocodile, a treacherous decoy, and a rapacious vulture.

Wolves go after a wounded deer, it is the nature of the beast.

I paid a worker at New York's zoo to re-open it just for me and Robin (his wife). When we got to the gorilla cage there was 1 big Silverback gorilla there just bullying all the other gorillas. They were so powerful but their eyes were like an innocent infant. I offered the attendant $10,000 to open the cage and let smash that silverback's snotbox! He declined.

They had a... dog called Bluey. A know psychopath, Bluey would attack himself if nothing else was available.