Recommendations based on "The Penguin Book of Penguins"

One man's quest to save the bumblebee.Dave Goulson has always been obsessed with wildlife, from his childhood menagerie of exotic pets and dabbling in experimental taxidermy to his groundbreaking research into the mysterious ways of the bumblebee and his mission to protect our rarest bees.Once commonly found in the marshes of Kent, the short-haired bumblebee now only exists in the wilds of New Zealand, the descendants of a few queen bees shipped over in the nineteenth century. Dave Goulson’s passionate drive to reintroduce it to its native land is one of the highlights of a book that includes exclusive research into these curious creatures, history’s relationship with the bumblebee and advice on how to protect it for all time.One of the UK's most respected conservationists and the founder of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, Goulson combines Gerald Durrell-esque tales of a child’s growing passion for nature with a deep insight into the crucial importance of the bumblebee. He details the minutiae of life in their nests, sharing fascinating research into the effects intensive farming has had on our bee populations and on the potential dangers if we are to continue down this path.

SCUFFING, MINOR EDGE WEAR AND SOME CHAFING ON COVERS & SPINE. INSIDE COVERS AND PAGES CLEAN & INTACT. SAME COVER AS STOCK PHOTO SHOWN.

'Kimmerer blends, with deep attentiveness and musicality, science and personal insights to tell the overlooked story of the planet's oldest plants' Guardian'Bewitching ... a masterwork ... a glittering read in its entirety' Maria Popova, BrainpickingsLiving at the limits of our ordinary perception, mosses are a common but largely unnoticed element of the natural world. Gathering Moss is a beautifully written mix of science and personal reflection that invites readers to explore and learn from the elegantly simple lives of mosses.In these interwoven essays, Robin Wall Kimmerer leads general readers and scientists alike to an understanding of how mosses live and how their lives are intertwined with the lives of countless other beings. Kimmerer explains the biology of mosses clearly and artfully, while at the same time reflecting on what these fascinating organisms have to teach us.Drawing on her experiences as a scientist, a mother, and a Native American, Kimmerer explains the stories of mosses in scientific terms as well as within the framework of indigenous ways of knowing. In her book, the natural history and cultural relationships of mosses become a powerful metaphor for ways of living in the world.

Centring on the discovery in the Burgess Shale of 530 million year old fossils unique in age, preservation and diversity, this book challenges perceptions about man's place in the history of life.

"teeming with fascinating and enlightening insights" Observer A narrative investigation into the new science of plant intelligence and sentience, from National Association of Science Writers Award winner and Livingston Award finalist Zoe Schlanger. Look at the green organism across the room or through the window: the potted plant, or the grass or a tree. Think how a life spent constantly growing yet rooted in a single spot comes with tremendous challenges. To meet them, plants have come up with some of the most creative methods for surviving of any living thing - us included. Many are so ingenious that they seem nearly impossible. Did you know plants can communicate when they are being eaten, allowing nearby plants to bolster their defences? They move and that movement stops when they are anaesthetised. They also use electricity for internal communication. They can hear the sounds of caterpillars eating. Plants can remember the last time they have been visited by a bee and how many times they have been visited - so they have a concept of time and can count. Plants can not only communicate with each other, they can also communicate with other species of plants and animals, allowing them to manipulate animals to defend or fertilise them. So look again at the potted plant, or the grass or the tree and wonder: are plants intelligent? Or perhaps ask an even more fundamental question: are they conscious? The Light Eaters will completely redefine how you think about plants. Packed with the most amazing stories of the life of plants it will open your eyes to the extraordinary green life forms we share the planet with.

The National Institute of Health recently announced its plan to retire the fifty remaining chimpanzees held in national research facilities and place them in sanctuaries. This significant decision comes after a lengthy process of examination and debate about the ethics of animal research. For decades, proponents of such research have argued that the discoveries and benefits for humans far outweigh the costs of the traumatic effects on the animals; but today, even the researchers themselves have come to question the practice. John P. Gluck has been one of the scientists at the forefront of the movement to end research on primates, and in Voracious Science and Vulnerable Animals he tells a vivid, heart-rending, personal story of how he became a vocal activist for animal protection.Gluck begins by taking us inside the laboratory of Harry F. Harlow at the University of Wisconsin, where Gluck worked as a graduate student in the 1960s. Harlow’s primate lab became famous for his behavioral experiments in maternal deprivation and social isolation of rhesus macaques. Though trained as a behavioral scientist, Gluck finds himself unable to overlook the intense psychological and physical damage these experiments wrought on the macaques. Gluck’s sobering and moving account reveals how in this and other labs, including his own, he came to grapple with the uncomfortable justifications that many researchers were offering for their work. As his sense of conflict grows, we’re right alongside him, developing a deep empathy for the often smart and always vulnerable animals used for these experiments.At a time of unprecedented recognition of the intellectual cognition and emotional intelligence of animals, Voracious Science and Vulnerable Animals is a powerful appeal for our respect and compassion for those creatures who have unwillingly dedicated their lives to science. Through the words of someone who has inflicted pain in the name of science and come to abhor it, it’s important to know what has led this far to progress and where further inroads in animal research ethics are needed.

"THE ULTIMATE DINOSAUR BIOGRAPHY," hails Scientific American: A thrilling new history of the age of dinosaurs, from one of our finest young scientists."A masterpiece of science writing." —Washington PostA New York Times Bestseller • Goodreads Choice Awards Winner • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Smithsonian, Science Friday, The Times (London), Popular Mechanics, Science News"This is scientific storytelling at its most visceral, striding with the beasts through their Triassic dawn, Jurassic dominance, and abrupt demise in the Cretaceous." —NatureThe dinosaurs. Sixty-six million years ago, the Earth’s most fearsome creatures vanished. Today they remain one of our planet’s great mysteries. Now The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs reveals their extraordinary, 200-million-year-long story as never before.In this captivating narrative (enlivened with more than seventy original illustrations and photographs), Steve Brusatte, a young American paleontologist who has emerged as one of the foremost stars of the field—naming fifteen new species and leading groundbreaking scientific studies and fieldwork—masterfully tells the complete, surprising, and new history of the dinosaurs, drawing on cutting-edge science to dramatically bring to life their lost world and illuminate their enigmatic origins, spectacular flourishing, astonishing diversity, cataclysmic extinction, and startling living legacy. Captivating and revelatory, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs is a book for the ages.Brusatte traces the evolution of dinosaurs from their inauspicious start as small shadow dwellers—themselves the beneficiaries of a mass extinction caused by volcanic eruptions at the beginning of the Triassic period—into the dominant array of species every wide-eyed child memorizes today, T. rex, Triceratops, Brontosaurus, and more. This gifted scientist and writer re-creates the dinosaurs’ peak during the Jurassic and Cretaceous, when thousands of species thrived, and winged and feathered dinosaurs, the prehistoric ancestors of modern birds, emerged. The story continues to the end of the Cretaceous period, when a giant asteroid or comet struck the planet and nearly every dinosaur species (but not all) died out, in the most extraordinary extinction event in earth’s history, one full of lessons for today as we confront a “sixth extinction.”Brusatte also recalls compelling stories from his globe-trotting expeditions during one of the most exciting eras in dinosaur research—which he calls “a new golden age of discovery”—and offers thrilling accounts of some of the remarkable findings he and his colleagues have made, including primitive human-sized tyrannosaurs; monstrous carnivores even larger than T. rex; and paradigm-shifting feathered raptors from China.An electrifying scientific history that unearths the dinosaurs’ epic saga, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs will be a definitive and treasured account for decades to come.Includes 75 images, world maps of the prehistoric earth, and a dinosaur family tree.

'Fascinating' Greta Thunberg 'Extraordinary' Merlin Sheldrake 'A must-read' New Scientist 'Enthralling' George Monbiot 'Brilliant' Philip Hoare Wildlife filmmaker Tom Mustill had always liked whales. But when one breached onto his kayak, nearly killing him, he became obsessed. This book traces his extraordinary investigation into the deep ocean and the cutting-edge science of animal translation. What would it take to speak with a whale? Are we ready for what they might say? MORE PRAISE FOR HOW TO SPEAK WHALE 'One of the most exciting and hopeful books I have read in ages' SY MONTGOMERY, AUTHOR OF THE SOUL OF AN OCTOPUS 'A narrative that will expand your concept of language and deepen your understanding of the many ways there are to be alive ... It left me inspired' MERLIN SHELDRAKE, AUTHOR OF ENTANGLED LIFE 'A must-read ... a hugely engaging personal story of a journey into the future of human-animal communication facilitated by delving into its past' NEW SCIENTIST 'Fascinating and deeply humane' GRETA THUNBERG 'A rich, enthralling, brilliant book that opens our eyes and ears to worlds we can scarcely imagine' GEORGE MONBIOT, AUTHOR OF REGENESIS 'Tantalizing ... Think how transformative it would be if we could chat with whales about their love lives or their sorrows or their thoughts on the philosophy of language' ELIZABETH KOLBERT, NEW YORKER

A photographic field guide to all the common and some unusual species of insects across Britain and Ireland that the keen amateur naturalist is likely to spot, this collection of 1,500 species is illustrated with detailed photographs chosen for their help in identification, including photographs of larvae. Each section is coded with a symbol for easy reference, and differences between similar species are highlighted to avoid confusion. Information is given on when to look and where to find each species. Insect groups dealt with include butterflies and moths, mayflies, dragonflies, damselflies, grasshoppers, crickets, earwigs, lacewings, bugs, bees, wasps, and ants and beetles, all with keys to ensure accurate identification.

From tiny insects to sleek sharks and majestic elephants, this book invites you to explore the animal kingdom up close - from nose to tail. Whether you're interested in specific animal groups such as mammals or birds or have a passion for wildlife photography, this beautiful book will delight, fascinate, and surprise.DK's elegant new introduction to wild animals is packed with dramatic photography that celebrates their beauty. Crystal-clear diagrams then explain how animals work and describe how they are adapted to do different things and to survive in different environments. The unique nose-to-tail approach, with chapters on different body parts, allows you to focus in on the beauty of the antenna of a moth, the flight feathers of a parrot, or the feeding tentacles of a jellyfish. The Science of Animals also explores how we have depicted animals in art throughout the ages, from zoological drawings that recorded new discoveries to great paintings inspired by a deep connection to the natural world. With fascinating stories, such as how animals communicate, defend their territories, and attract mates, The Science of Animals offers an engaging introduction to the extraordinary diversity of the animal kingdom.