Provides an exploration of adolescent and young adult animal life on Earth. Trekking the globe and drawing from their latest research, Natterson-Horowitz and Bowers discovered that all animals and humans on the journey to adulthood face four core challenges: how to stay safe, negotiate status, navigate sexuality, and cultivate self-reliance. How human and animal adolescents meet these challenges shapes their adult destinies. The authors illuminate these four challenges through the real-life experiences of four wild animals tracked by scientists around the world: Ursula, a naive king penguin; Shrink, a charismatic hyena; Salt, an adventurous humpback whale, and Slavc, a restless wolf who takes off on a solo quest across the Alps. Through their stories--and those of countless others, from rebellious eagles and stressed-out high soldiers--readers get a portrait of adolescents as a planetwide tribe sharing behaviors and challenges, setbacks and triumphs. --From publisher description.

Prologue --Part I. Safety. Dangerous days ; The nature of fear ; Knowing your predators ; The self-confident fish ; School for survival -- Part II. Status. The age of assessment ; The rules of groups ; Privileged creatures ; The pain of social descent ; The power of an ally -- Part III. Sex. Animal romance ; Desire & restraint ; The first time ; Coercion & consent -- Part IV. Self-reliance. Learning to launch ; Making a living ; The great alone ; Finding a self ; Epilogue.