About the Author:
Charles Kingsley Levy is Professor of Biology at Boston University and Research Professor at Boston University Medical School. During World War II he earned both aerial gunner's wings and navigator's wings and served in North Africa and Europe. Since then, he has consulted for the Department of Defense, the Air Force, NASA, and the CIA, and worked as a park ranger and a safari leader in Africa. He lectures on military history as well as on nature.
From School Library Journal:
YA-This book explores the "extraordinary technologies" species have devised to ensure their survival. This Darwinian struggle has produced strategies, tactics, and weaponry that rival or surpass even the most sophisticated efforts produced by humans. Levy's evocation of military terminology will be familiar to generations raised with television, movies, and video games. Discussions of early warning and navigation systems, echolocation, and "primary target acquisition systems" pepper the text. The author pays special attention to the weapons technology that abounds in nature-claws, talons, teeth, suffocation (constrictors), toxic injection (scorpions), and electricity (eels). He points out offensive and defensive strategies practiced by a range of species, such as the schooling strategies of fish, the cooperative hunting exhibited by wolves and other carnivores, and the recruitment of mercenaries, evidenced by the relationship between thorn acacia trees and ants. Although Levy limits his focus to "familiar organisms," he includes an impressive array of species, from the microbial world to the largest vertebrates, past and present. The exquisite drawings provide the crowning touch.
Dori DeSpain, Herndon Fortnightly Library, Fairfax County, VA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.