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Virginia Morell is a prolific contributor to National Geographic, Science, and Smithsonian, among other publications. She is also the author of Ancestral Passions, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; Blue Nile; and coauthor with Richard Leakey of Wildlife Wars. Below, Ms. Morell discusses the research that went into her latest work, "Animal Wise: The Thoughts and Emotions of Our Fellow Creatures."

Some people have asked me why I traveled to meet the scientists I profiled in Animal Wise. “Why didn’t you just interview them on Skype, on the phone, or ask questions through email?” Certainly, you can write a book that way. I always find that nothing replaces a one-on-one meeting. I don’t think I would have found out that Nigel Franks, the ant researcher at the University of Bristol, calls his ants “people” if I’d been interviewing him on the phone. I doubt that the dog cognition researcher, Adam Miklosi, would have confided that he is not a dog person at all, but that he loves cats. And I find it difficult to picture Lou Herman opening up about the fates of his dolphins, if we weren’t talking face-to-face. Through my visits, I gathered details and intimate stories like these, and others that let me paint word pictures of the scientists at work and with their animals.

I also traveled to meet the scientists because I wanted to see them working with their animals—handling them, and talking to them. All too often scientists are portrayed as cold-hearted people, who think nothing of inflicting pain on defenseless animals. Yes, there are individuals like this, but in my experience, they are the exception. Most scientists studying animals are warmly compassionate—as Alex Kacelnik, at Oxford University, demonstrated simply in the way he cheerily greeted his birds by name: “Hello, Uek!” Similarly, I discovered that the great Japanese chimpanzee researcher, Tetsuro Matsuzawa, sits in a kindergartner’s chair to study his chimpanzees. He wants to make sure that they are above him just as they would be in a forest in the wild. And by watching bird cognition researcher, Irene Pepperberg, I discovered that she had a far more affectionate relationship with Alex the Gray Parrot than her words alone suggested. She emphasized to me that he was her “colleague,” but then she gently stroked and kissed his feathered head.

I wanted to see Nigel Franks show how ants teach. I wanted to hear a rat laugh; see an archerfish hit its prey with a blast of water; watch a dolphin peer at itself in a mirror. I wanted to hear Alex’s voice, and a parrot in the wild “speak” its name. I wanted to observe the scientists testing what elephants know about strangers, and what young wolves perceive about humans. I scribbled notes like mad in each lab and at every field site. And when I came home, I had what I needed for my book: stories to tell, rich in detail, unexpected observations, and characters.

"Animal Wise: The Thoughts and Emotions of Our Fellow Creatures" will be released February 26, 2013.