FUZZ: Mary Roach on animal crimes (audio)

Mary Roach, Dave Davies (Fresh Air), Lulu Garcia-Navarro, NPR; CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly

Monkey thieves, drunk elephants — Mary Roach reveals weird world of animal "crime"

Macaque monkeys check out camera in Galtaji Temple in Jaipur, India, to decide whether to steal it, break it, or hold it for ransom. They are cheeky (Vishal Bhatnagar/NurPhoto via Getty Images).

Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law

Animals living among us often ignore the rules we try to impose on them. Science writer Mary Roach (Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law) experienced this firsthand when a group of macaque monkeys accosted her in India. "I was kind of asking for it," she admits. "I walked up this trail where I knew there were a lot of macaques, and I walked up holding a bag of bananas." At first, nothing happened. Then Roach saw a monkey pop its head up from behind a boulder, "kind of like the bandits waiting for the stagecoach." Just as that monkey stepped into her path, another monkey darted up behind her and snatched the bag of bananas. "I don't know if they were a team, like 'I'll distract her and you grab the bananas,' or whether they were competing bandits," she says. "But anyway, I got mugged." More

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HOST LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO (Morning Edition Sunday): We all know that nature can be unpredictable, fascinating, sometimes just plain strange. But what happens when wildlife breaks the law? That's what author Mary Roach explores in her new book, Fuzz. It deals with the often bemusing, sometimes grisly world of animal, plant, and human encounters. There are foul-tempered elephants, undeterred seagulls, and bears who just won't stop eating out of restaurant dumpsters no matter what the city's health code says.... I mean, your books delve into the science of subjects people haven't really thought too deeply about -- cadavers, ghosts, the digestive tract. What led you to delve into wildlife

ROACH: Well, I was flailing around in my usual way, looking for a new book idea. I often write about the human body, but I've kind of used that up. There's only so many pieces...that are kind of Roach-able. So got interested in the forensics of wildlife crime, not when animals are the perpetrators, but when the animals are the victims....I was up at this lab in Ashland, Oregon, where this woman has a hair library -- you know, like, five different types of hair from each species, so she can identify, you know, contraband that comes across the border. I got interested in that. She's also the author of a paper on how to tell real versus counterfeit tiger penis, which is sold illegally....I can now tell the difference, can tell you if it's real or fake. More