Ideal for young nature enthusiasts, this reference book introduces children to the exciting hobby of birdwatching. It serves as a guide to discovering and appreciating various bird species, encouraging outdoor exploration and fostering a love for wildlife.
Every animal on the planet owes its existence to one crucial piece of evolutionary engineering: the egg. It's time to tell a new story of life on Earth. 'One of my favourite science writers' LUCY COOKE If you think of an egg, what do you see in your mind's eye? A chicken egg, hard-boiled? A slimy mass of frogspawn? Perhaps you see a human egg cell, prepared on a microscope slide in a laboratory? Or the majestic marble-blue eggs of the blackbird? Every egg there has ever been, is an emblem of survival. Yet the evolution of the animal egg is the dramatic subplot missing in many accounts of how life on Earth came to be. Quite simply, without this universal biological phenomenon, animals as we know them, including us, could not have evolved and flourished. In Infinite Life, zoology correspondent Jules Howard takes the reader on a mind-bending journey from the churning coastlines of the Cambrian Period and Carboniferous coal forests, where insects were stirring, to the end of the age of dinosaurs when live-birthing mammals began their modern rise to power. Eggs would evolve from out of the sea; be set by animals into soils, sands, canyons and mudflats; be dropped in nests wrapped in silk; hung in stick nests in trees, covered in crystallised shells or secured by placentas. Whether belonging to birds, insects, mammals or millipedes, animal eggs are objects that have been shaped by their ecology, forged by mass extinctions and honed by natural selection to near-perfection. Finally, the epic story of their role in the tapestry of life can be told.
Respect the Insect is a funny book led by wacky bugs who show you all the ways they help us—from helping make chocolate to eating poo!
Each animal on the planet owes its existence to one very simple but crucial piece of evolutionary engineering: the egg. ?It’s time to tell a new story of life on Earth.
Exploring the profound bond between humans and dogs, the book delves into how this relationship has shaped scientific advancements. Author Jules Howard examines historical perspectives, highlighting the contributions of notable scientists like Darwin, Pavlov, and Pasteur, who studied canine behavior and cognition. The narrative reveals that dogs possess complex emotions, episodic memory, and remarkable sensory abilities. Through collaboration with various experts and his own experiences with dogs, Howard emphasizes their vital role in fostering compassion in scientific research and improving life for all species.
The Who, What, Why of Zoology takes you up close to Earth's most amazing animals and the scientists working to learn everything about them.
"How dogs defied science and changed the way we think about animals. What do dogs really think of us? What do dogs know and understand of the world? Do their emotions feel like our own? Do they love like we do? Driven by his own love of dogs, Charles Darwin was nagged by questions like these. To root out answers, his contemporaries toyed with dog sign language. To reveal clues, they made special puzzle boxes and elaborate sniff tests using old socks. Later, the same perennial questions about the minds of dogs drove Pavlov and Pasteur to unspeakable cruelty in their search for truth. These big names in science influenced leagues of psychologists and animal behaviourists, each building upon the ideas and received wisdom of previous generations but failing to see what was staring them in the face - that the very methods humans used to study dogs' minds were influencing the insights reflected back. To discover the impressive cognitive feats that dogs are capable of, a new approach was needed. Treated with love and compassion, dogs would open up their unique perspective on the world, and a new breed of scientists would be provided answers to life's biggest questions. Wonderdog is the story of those dogs - a historical account of how we came to know what dogs are capable of. It's a celebration of animal minds and the secrets they hold. And it's a love letter to science, through the good times and the bad"--Publisher's description
The go-to guide to discovering the secrets of the UK's snakes.
Find out everything you ever wanted to know about insects in this comprehensive encyclopedia
This friendly, practical guide includes everything you need to know to help wetland wildlife flourish outside your back door.