Surviving: How Animals Adapt to Their Environments - Hardcover

Minelli, Alessandro; Mannucci, Maria

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1554075203 ISBN 13: 9781554075201

Publisher: Firefly Books, 2009

Synopsis

A kaleidoscope of magnificent photographs details the astonishing diversity of evolutionary adaptation among animales and plants.

Several million species inhabit the earth, survivors of more than three billion years of evolution. The plants and animals that have avoided extinction have had to adapt to a variety of harsh conditions.

Packed with sumptuous photographs, Surviving presents the most striking examples of these incredible artists of survival, including:

• The crab spider, which changes color to hide from its prey.
• The gecko that clings to a vertical rock with feet that have developed tiny suction cups.
• Emperor penguins, which work shifts with their mate, cradling their precious egg between their legs to protect it from the bitter Antarctic cold.
• The Portuguese man of war that drifts harmlessly on the waves until it is attacked, whereupon the sting from its tentacles paralyzes the attacker.

Surviving provides fascinating explanations of how species have adapted to survive the challenges and complexities of an ever-changing ecosystem.

About this title

About the Author

Alessandro Minelli is a professor of zoology at the University of Padua, Italy. He specializes in evolutionary developmental biology and is the author of several books about evolution and animal behavior.

Maria Pia Mannucci, an author and illustrator, writes about the biogeography of invertebrates and natural history.

Reviews

Basically, this is a magnificent picture book, a coffee-table eye-catcher of foot-square and larger close-ups of animals ranging from jellyfish to chimps. The color is rich and true; the display of photos next to black and occasional solid-color pages (white is used only for text pages) boldly but unassertively propels attention to the pictures; and the two-page-spread images (24 by 12 inches) of such things as a fully unfurled peacock’s tail and penguins enfolded by a hallucinatorily curvy iceberg are genuine jaw-droppers. The texts prefacing the book’s five sections—“Hunger” (feeding), “Love” (reproduction and raising young), “Attacks” (predation), “Extremes” (of habitat), and “Changes” (of form and coloration)—are scientific and informative, and the captions mostly follow suit. But a sprinkling of errors—ambiguous pronouns, bad end-line syllabications, lie-lay confusion, and a misplaced sentence—in the (uncredited) translation from Italian smudges an otherwise gorgeous and intelligent album. --Ray Olson

Edition details

• Publisher: Firefly Books
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1554075203
• ISBN 13: 9781554075201
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 200