{"id":58150,"date":"2025-06-16T22:17:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T02:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/?p=58150"},"modified":"2025-06-17T09:34:18","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T13:34:18","slug":"how-we-miss-half-of-wildlife-on-the-secret-world-in-front-of-your-doorstep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/2025\/06\/16\/how-we-miss-half-of-wildlife-on-the-secret-world-in-front-of-your-doorstep\/","title":{"rendered":"How We Miss Half of Wildlife: On the secret world in front of your doorstep"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following is an extended excerpt from Living Night<\/em><\/a> by Sophia Kimmig.<\/p>\n

Simply put, it\u2019s exciting. And the nocturnal wildlife in front of your doorstep is<\/em> exciting. It is unusual, intriguing, astonishing, and extraordinarily beautiful.<\/blockquote><\/figure>\n

For years, I went about my life without noticing it, the dark world. I never gave it a thought. And yet, it\u2019s not all that far away, it\u2019s not hidden away in some far-flung place. It\u2019s right under our noses. Imagine a city or a vil\u00adlage\u2014perhaps where you live. At night, it will look completely different from how it does during the day. The scene might be similar\u2014if a little more dimly lit\u2014but the main characters are altogether different. Under cover of darkness, they assume control of the city unnoticed by us. Let\u2019s visit my hometown briefly and take a closer look.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 1:00 AM in Berlin\u2019s embassy district. It\u2019s a mild night, but the last breath of winter is still hanging in the cool air. At the Westend stop on the M45 bus line, <\/em>a small, lonely bus shelter stands in the light of a streetlight. The lamp casts its glow on the empty benches, illuminating the cobble\u00adstones and placards, which loom out of the darkness in shades of gray and are lost in the dark foliage of the hedges and trees of the adjacent park.<\/p>\n

\"A
The Living Night book cover. My personal love story to the creatures of the dark. Photo: The Experiment<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you look closely, you can just about make out a dark spot amid the bushes, a deeper black than everything around it. A rustling is coming from this spot, interrupting the nighttime hush. Quiet at first, it grows louder, with a twitching of twigs, a rustling of leaves, and a cracking of branches.<\/p>\n

A squat figure steps out of the darkness, pausing briefly to listen. A long snout ending in a large, soft nose moves into the lamplight. The sow\u2019s head almost seems too small when compared to her large, bristly body. Her button eyes are alert, her big ears pricked up attentively as she walks out onto the curb. Behind her, tiny bodies bearing pale stripes peel themselves away from the undergrowth. First one, then a second, and a third. Little by little, the space around the small bus shelter fills with a drove of wild boars. Leading her seven piglets, this seasoned sow is making for the garbage can on the side of the shelter, and she heads toward it now, hoping to forage for something to eat while little noses search the ground for acorns and other nutritious treats. The family enjoys their meal amid a chorus of champing and grunting. It\u2019s breakfast time for the boars; for them, the day has only just begun.<\/p>\n

Six and a half hours later, around 7:30 AM, the Westend bus shelter is a hive of activity once again. Inside the shelter, a man sits on the bench, holding a backpack on his lap; a woman sits next to him, absentmind\u00adedly rocking a stroller. Next to the streetlamp, its light switched off, is a man in a suit; he throws his coffee cup into the recycling bin. People swarm along the curb as their bus arrives. They are going to work, taking their children to day care, running errands, going about their morning routines; they haven\u2019t the faintest inkling of the nighttime creatures that visited their bus stop just hours before.<\/p>\n

\"A
Wild boars in the city. During the daytime we usually only see the traces of wild boars, for example when they have \u201credesigned\u201d green spaces and gardens with great enthusiasm the previous night. For their 170- to 220-pound (75- to 100-kilogram) body weight, these sturdy animals can hide surprisingly well in a dense hedge, and in the darkness of the night. Photo: Marco Papajewski<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The goings-on at this bus shelter are just a tiny fraction of the nightlife that cities see playing out far from their bars and clubs. It is just a small por\u00adtion of the nightlife in our towns and villages and just a sliver of the nightlife to which the natural world plays host. In the daytime, human beings wait for buses, mow lawns, or play soccer in the same spaces where the inhab\u00aditants of the nighttime world will soon be venturing out on soft-padding paws and silent wings. Bats hunt moths, foxes steal shoes, racoons search for food in garden ponds, and our various other wild neighbors begin their day\u2019s work. Their night\u2019s work, we should say, because the majority of their lives takes place at night. Whether they live in the countryside or in the city, most mammals are nocturnal. But they\u2019re not the only ones; other animals have also opted for the darker side.<\/p>\n

The other world<\/strong><\/p>\n

You know how it goes: Night follows day. So far, so normal. But have you ever really thought about what that means? Human beings sleep through a significant portion of the twenty-four-hour cycle. It\u2019s not just a couple of hours we\u2019re missing out on. It\u2019s an entire world, a kind of mirror universe where everything is somehow the same and yet completely different. It\u2019s as if life is split in two\u2014two parallel worlds with their own creatures and rules, and their own realities.<\/p>\n

\"A
A barn owl with its magnificent plumage. Many night dwellers have stunning patterns or colors. Often, we are just unaware of the hidden beauty of the nocturnal world. Photo: Pixabay<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It might not seem all that important that we live the overwhelming majority of our lives in just one of these two worlds, but it has far-reach\u00ading implications. It impacts us directly. Our skills and habits, our physiol\u00adogy, and much of what makes us human are all tightly bound up with our lifestyles as day-dwellers. It starts with how we orient ourselves, because our eyes\u2014our keenest sense\u2014are adapted to seeing in daylight. They break up complex scenes into wonderful, colorful, and clear images and help us to find our way in the world. However, as soon as night falls, we are reliant on sources of light, be they natural\u2014such as fire, or the light of the full moon on a clear night\u2014or the millions of artificial lights that we use to illuminate the night. We\u2019re not entirely blind in natural darkness\u2014and our eyes can definitely adapt to nighttime low-light conditions\u2014but our night vision is severely limited.<\/p>\n

Our sleep-wake cycle and hormone metabolism are also designed for us to be active predominantly during the day and to rest at night. In contrast to numerous other creatures who distribute their periods of sleep across the day, we are natural night sleepers and require dark\u00adness to enable us to release melatonin and enjoy restorative sleep. At the same time, light makes us feel alert and cheerful; it lifts our mood and improves our cognitive performance. This is particularly true of blue light, which occurs naturally in the spectrum of colors in visible light. Our affinity for blue is due to the molecule melanopsin; the photopig\u00adment in our retinas responds especially strongly to this color of light. While this can cheer us up during the day, however, it can keep us awake at night; the blue light from computer and phone screens can upset our hormones, which have developed over thousands of years, and disrupt our circadian clock. Living and working contrary to our natural rhythm can even make us ill. People who regularly work nights are at greater risk of cancer, cardiac issues, depression, and other illnesses. Hence, turning night into day isn\u2019t the healthiest idea, but making an exception now and then won\u2019t do us any harm, especially if it gives us wonderful insights into a world otherwise hidden from us.<\/p>\n

\"A
Sleepy raccoon in a tree. Being up at night might be unfamiliar and exhausting (unless you’re a raccoon, in which case it’s the other way around), but you will discover a whole new world. Photo: Marco Papajewski<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Our diurnal lifestyle not only impacts our bodies; it also affects the way we perceive the world. Take, for instance, our understanding of the natural world around us. Let\u2019s do a little experiment to illustrate: Try to think of the names of three butterflies. Which ones come to mind?<\/p>\n

Monarchs, swallowtails, and painted ladies, perhaps? Then you\u2019ve got the cabbage white, tortoiseshell, fritillary, mourning cloak, and orange tip. Which of these occurred to you? Even if their names didn\u2019t come to mind, you\u2019re certain to know a few of them. Now, let\u2019s repeat the exercise, but this time with moths.
\nHow was it? If none came to mind, don\u2019t fret: You\u2019re in the majority. Not too long ago, I would have struggled to name three. When I started working on a project examining natural darkness and its inhabitants, I had no idea just how little I knew. I primarily encountered raccoons, martens, and hedgehogs on my nighttime outings when I was working with foxes as part of my doctoral thesis. There were many other nighttime residents that I simply didn\u2019t notice.
\nSpurred on by my ignorance of moths, I started researching, looking for different moths and their names, only to find that some species didn\u2019t even have their own common names in my native German. On a page about moths in a children\u2019s book, I discovered\u2014alongside the names of the luna moth and the giant peacock moth\u2014some rather less child-friendly names, like Eumorpha labruscae<\/em> and Citheronia regalis<\/em>. These are examples of the Latin species names given to all known living things, composed of the genus and species (for instance, Canis lupus<\/em> for the wolf or Homo sapiens<\/em> for modern human beings). No one had made an effort to give these wonderful creatures names in the language I use every day.
\nWhen we do give moths common names, they can be poetic (like clouded silver, pale beauty, and early gray) or romantic (like the true lover\u2019s knot). They are spooky (the blood-vein and the feathered gothic), cute (the little thorn and the snout), misleading (the common swift and the garden tiger), and\u2014occasionally\u2014whimsical (like the figure of eighty and the common footman).
\nBut out there in the darkness, there are thousands of beautiful, colorful, wildly patterned, transparent, or unusually shaped moths with amazing abilities (including the most subtle sense of smell known in the animal kingdom) that almost no one talks about.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just moths that are affected by our daytime bias. Many scientific findings on the world of plants and animals and beyond have been gleaned during the day, as nighttime investigations are underrepresented in science. But what difference does it actually make? Take a look at the proportion of nocturnal animals among the animal species on the Red List of Threatened Species, issued by the International Union for Conservation of Natures (IUCN), and something stands out. Nocturnal animals appear to be less hit by decline than other species.<\/p>\n

However, it would probably be wrong to conclude that nocturnal animals are under less of a threat. Alongside many species on the Red List\u2014as well as various categories of threat ranging from \u201cleast concern\u201d to \u201cextinct\u201d\u2014the letters \u201cDD\u201d appear: \u201cdata deficient\u201d. This signifies that there is not a sufficient basis of data to classify the species and that we simply know too little about them to be able to assess the threats they face.<\/p>\n

Over 80 percent of the 583 species labeled \u201cDD\u201d are nocturnal. By contrast, only 11 percent are diurnal. So when it comes to nocturnal species, we\u2019re very much in the dark\u2014if you can excuse the pun. We may be underestimating the risks they face, responding inadequately and too late.<\/p>\n

To some extent, we know next to nothing about which areas of our scientific research are affected by our focus on the daytime. Just look at research on medication. For decades, medicines were\u2014and all too frequently still are\u2014predominantly tested on young male subjects. It was only later that we realized what this meant: It was still unclear whether the substances tested were effective for women, older people, or children. Subsequent studies aiming to ascertain this often came to alarming conclusions. Just as some illnesses can present entirely differently in women and men, medicines also do not work in the same manner for all people; in certain groups, their effects are almost imperceptible. This is a big problem, but we were ignorant of its exis\u00adtence for some time. So, who knows what effect our blind spot for darkness might have?<\/p>\n

There is still a lot for us to learn about the night, and if we want to pro\u00adtect nature, we may well have to think in terms of time as well as space. For example, some scientists and conservationists suggest making con\u00adservation areas accessible to people at only certain times of day. Scientists believe this could better protect many species in a world where human settlements continue to encroach with ever greater density.<\/p>\n

So, we should investigate the nighttime more thoroughly. First, from a scientific perspective: Scientists from various disciplines could devote them\u00adselves to studying the night, investigating topics such as the influence of artificial light on our ecosystems, the optimal start time for the school day, and the question of daylight saving time. It could even go a step further and incorporate the fields of philosophy, art, or anthropology. After all, our daytime bias has shaped the history of civ\u00adilization itself. The physicist, writer, and philosopher Georg Christoph Lichtenberg addressed this topic all the way back in the eighteenth cen\u00adtury: \u201cOur entire history is merely the history of the waking life of man; nobody has yet considered the history of his sleeping life\u201d.<\/p>\n

Second, from our personal perspectives as human beings and creatures of the day: There are a whole number of reasons why we ought to pay greater attention to darkness and everything it conceals. But I always come back to what first pushed me to study biology, and also motivated me to explore my city\u2019s nocturnal wildlife, the thing that urges me, day in and day out, to stick my nose in something and have a look around: Simply put, it\u2019s exciting. And the nocturnal wildlife in front of your doorstep is<\/em> exciting. It is unusual, intriguing, astonishing, and extraordinarily beautiful.<\/p>\n

So, let\u2019s dive into this secret sphere together. Join me on an expedition into the \u201cOther World\u201d in Living Night: On the Secret Wonders of Wildlife After Dark<\/em>. May the book serve you as a source of discovery and joy as well as an inspiration to put aside the perspective of a day dweller and surrender all your senses to the night.<\/p>\n

Sophia Kimmig<\/strong>
\nLeipzig<\/p>\n

On The Nature of Cities<\/a><\/p>\n

Credit line<\/strong>: Extended excerpt from\u00a0Living Night: On the Secret Wonders of Wildlife After Dark<\/em><\/a> \u00a9 <\/em>Sophia Kimmig, 2025. Reprinted by permission of the publisher, The Experiment. Available everywhere books are sold. theexperimentpublishing.com<\/p>\n

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The following is an extended excerpt from Living Night by Sophia Kimmig. For years, I went about my life without noticing it, the dark world. I never gave it a thought. And yet, it\u2019s not all that far away, it\u2019s not hidden away in some far-flung place. It\u2019s right under our noses. Imagine a city […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1328,"featured_media":58156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[273,938,298,299],"tags":[43,401,25,34,100],"coauthors":[1704],"class_list":["post-58150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","category-europe","category-essay-people-and-communitites","category-essay-place-and-design","tag-awareness","tag-biodiversity","tag-europe","tag-experiencing-nature","tag-wildlife-people-interactions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58150"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58162,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58150\/revisions\/58162"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58150"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=58150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}