A Japanese primate sociologist's life falls apart in slow-motion as he struggles with research, tension in his marriage, and his declining health.

Advancements in technology bring a chimpanzee's intelligence on par with humans, and he sets off to the moon to conduct research while yearning for his simpler life before he was augmented.

An esteemed chimpanzee expert retires in her Connecticut hometown with an ape who was raised as a human.

A teacher at an orangutan school develops intimate feelings for one of his students.

Sly, a monkey with human capacities, is growing increasingly upset with his containment. All he wants is to be treated with respect.

A group of American explorers and scientists in Africa, including two women, venture into the wild looking for gorillas. When one of the women goes missing, their native guides quit their jobs, and the men lead a slaughter of the gorillas, the other woman wonders if the first woman disappeared into the world of the gorillas by choice, to escape the confines of her life with men.

On an alien world, a colony of humans has evolved to reproduce with one mother and many fathers. After delaying for years, one young woman finally chooses three fathers for her baby, but her desire for freedom draws her into the orbit of the post-human anthropologists who have come from the stars to study this quaint biological mating ritual.

Vignettes of a number of relationships, most of them troubled, are glimpsed through the descriptions of creatures in this bestiary of the imaginary.

A man intently studies extinct mammals to escape his wife and mistress, who often vent to him about their daily worries and give him anxiety.

In the midst of an interplanetary war, two women meet an alien who is hoping to retrieve the body of his dead brother, whom he honors by consuming his remains.