ABSTRACT
An analogous democratising tendency has been manifest within the animal kingdom. Attention has transpired through the phylogenetic tree, so that scholarly scrutiny, which at first lingered on the charismatic megafauna who grace the logos of wildlife conservation societies and the equally charismatic domestic companions who represent humane advocacy organisations, extends to such invertebrate fellow creatures as ants, octopi, and leeches. Animal–human history extends far beyond the North Atlantic rim, and interdisciplinarily inclined though they are, historians seem less likely to incorporate insights from science into their work, than insights from more closely allied areas. Most historians have tended to stick closer to taxonomic home, restricting their analyses to other vertebrates, other mammals, or other primates. The most complex and intractable of engage issues are theoretical, including the nature of agency, the consequences of representation, and the ineluctability of anthropomorphism.
