Zombie Birds, Astronaut Fish, and Other Weird Animals

Zombie Birds, Astronaut Fish, and Other Weird Animals PDF Author: Becky Crew
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1440563357
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Take a walk on the weird side! Astronaut fish swimming in zero gravity? Fluffy little birds hungry for brains? Transformer butterflies morphing in midair? It's either a bad trip or one crazy safari. Becky Crew takes you on the latter by mixing serious scientific facts with lighthearted anthropomorphic stories. Each animal profile starts with a short, humorous day-in-the-life-of bit that leads into the real science of these really strange creatures. Becky keeps things fresh by mixing in her wit with the interesting facts. From naked mole rat reproduction to the Wolverine-style defenses of Cameroon's hairy frogs, Zombie Birds, Astronaut Fish, and Other Weird Animals packs enough information for one heck of a nature walk.

Zombie Birds, Astronaut Fish, and Other Weird Animals

Zombie Birds, Astronaut Fish, and Other Weird Animals PDF Author: Becky Crew
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1440563357
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Get Book

Book Description
Take a walk on the weird side! Astronaut fish swimming in zero gravity? Fluffy little birds hungry for brains? Transformer butterflies morphing in midair? It's either a bad trip or one crazy safari. Becky Crew takes you on the latter by mixing serious scientific facts with lighthearted anthropomorphic stories. Each animal profile starts with a short, humorous day-in-the-life-of bit that leads into the real science of these really strange creatures. Becky keeps things fresh by mixing in her wit with the interesting facts. From naked mole rat reproduction to the Wolverine-style defenses of Cameroon's hairy frogs, Zombie Birds, Astronaut Fish, and Other Weird Animals packs enough information for one heck of a nature walk.

Zombie Tits and Astronaut Fish and Other Weird Animals

Zombie Tits and Astronaut Fish and Other Weird Animals PDF Author: Rebecca Crew
Publisher: University of New South Wales Press
ISBN: 9781742233215
Category : Animals
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Did you know that the peacock mantis shrimp has the most powerful punch on Earth? That vampire spiders are attracted to your smelly socks? That the lesser water boatman is the loudest animal in the world and its instrument is its own penis? Or that concave-eared frogs have a secret language that only males can hear? From the mother-eating black-lace weaver spiders to Texas horned lizards that can shoot jets of poisonous blood from their eyes, this book from fearless science blogger Becky Crew will introduce you to a menagerie of the worlds weirdest animals.

A Book of Rather Strange Animals

A Book of Rather Strange Animals PDF Author: Caleb Compton
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781528944656
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


Encyclopedia of Strangely Named Animals

Encyclopedia of Strangely Named Animals PDF Author: Fredrik Colting
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780998820576
Category : Animals
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In the wonderful animal kingdom there are certain creatures with names so extraordinary you might think they are from another planet. In this book we visit them all in their home environment, and learn, not only where they live, what they eat and what they sound like, but also where they get their strange names from. Amazingly illustrated with full color spreads of the 28 strangest named animals in the world.

Albion's Seed

Albion's Seed PDF Author: David Hackett Fischer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780199743698
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 972

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Book Description
This fascinating book is the first volume in a projected cultural history of the United States, from the earliest English settlements to our own time. It is a history of American folkways as they have changed through time, and it argues a thesis about the importance for the United States of having been British in its cultural origins. While most people in the United States today have no British ancestors, they have assimilated regional cultures which were created by British colonists, even while preserving ethnic identities at the same time. In this sense, nearly all Americans are "Albion's Seed," no matter what their ethnicity may be. The concluding section of this remarkable book explores the ways that regional cultures have continued to dominate national politics from 1789 to 1988, and still help to shape attitudes toward education, government, gender, and violence, on which differences between American regions are greater than between European nations.

Drawn from Paradise

Drawn from Paradise PDF Author: David Attenborough
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062275801
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 398

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Book Description
From the moment Europeans were introduced to the birds of paradise in the early sixteenth century, their unique beauty was recognized and commemorated in the first name that they were given - birds so beautiful they must be from paradise. Originally they were thought not to have legs and therefore never to land. Still very rarely encountered, even in their natural habitat of New Guinea, they are still birds that elicit sheer awe in those who are lucky enough to see them. Drawn From Paradise will showcase the magnificence and beauty of the birds of paradise as they have never before been seen, with more than two-hundred hand-painted images and sketches by the men who originally studied them and luminary artists such as Jacques Barraband, William Hart, John Gould, Rubens and Breughel, to name a few. The art comes from the private collections of the two authors and has been rarely if ever published. Not only will the book feature the beautiful Greater Bird of Paradise-a bird that was originally believed to have been sent from Paradise, and was thought to never touch the earth-but it will also present more than forty other distinct species currently recognized-each representing amazing differences in size, shape, and color patterning. The introduction provides a brief history into the discovery of these illustrious birds, from how they were originally perceived and idolized by the natives of New Guinea, to the arrival of Europeans, who were immediately captivated by their bright, vibrant colors. The chapters are ordered according to the sequence in which the birds representing the various genera made their appearance in Europe (thereby highlighting the books educational aspect). Within its pages, readers will catch a glimpse of these birds through vivid, highly-detailed painting, as well as learn more about each individual bird and genus-comparisons and contrasts between the males and females, as well as between the different genus's. A tour through art and history, with a good deal of ornithology thrown in, Drawn From Paradise is not only a must-have for ornithologists and bird-watchers, but also a beautiful collectible for students, artists, and aesthetes. Its central idea is to showcase the breathtaking beauty of these birds and the enormous interest that still surrounds them even today.

Weird Life: The Search for Life That Is Very, Very Different from Our Own

Weird Life: The Search for Life That Is Very, Very Different from Our Own PDF Author: David Toomey
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393089940
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
“Weird indeed, and not a little wonderful.”—Nature In the 1980s and 1990s, in places where no one thought it possible, scientists found organisms they called extremophiles: lovers of extremes. There were bacteria in volcanic hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor, single-celled algae in Antarctic ice floes, and fungi in the cooling pools of nuclear reactors. But might there be life stranger than the most extreme extremophile? Might there be, somewhere, another kind of life entirely? In fact, scientists have hypothesized life that uses ammonia instead of water, life based not in carbon but in silicon, life driven by nuclear chemistry, and life whose very atoms are unlike those in life we know. In recent years some scientists have begun to look for the tamer versions of such life on rock surfaces in the American Southwest, in a “shadow biosphere” that might impinge on the known biosphere, and even deep within human tissue. They have also hypothesized more radical versions that might survive in Martian permafrost, in the cold ethylene lakes on Saturn’s moon Titan, and in the hydrogen-rich atmospheres of giant planets in other solar systems. And they have imagined it in places off those worlds: the exotic ices in comets, the vast spaces between the stars, and—strangest of all—parallel universes. Distilling complex science in clear and lively prose, David Toomey illuminates the research of the biological avant-garde and describes the workings of weird organisms in riveting detail. His chapters feature an unforgettable cast of brilliant scientists and cover everything from problems with our definitions of life to the possibility of intelligent weird life. With wit and understanding that will delight scientists and lay readers alike, Toomey reveals how our current knowledge of life forms may account for only a tiny fraction of what’s really out there.

All Yesterdays

All Yesterdays PDF Author: John Conway
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781291177121
Category : Animals, Fossil
Languages : en
Pages : 100

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Book Description
All Yesterdays is a book about the way we see dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. Lavishly illustrated with over sixty original artworks, All Yesterdays aims to challenge our notions of how prehistoric animals looked and behaved. As a criticalexploration of palaeontological art, All Yesterdays asks questions about what is probable, what is possible, and what iscommonly ignored.Written by palaeozoologist Darren Naish, and palaeontological artists John Conway and C.M. Kosemen, All Yesterdays isscientifically rigorous and artistically imaginative in its approach to fossils of the past - and those of the future.

How the Snake Lost its Legs

How the Snake Lost its Legs PDF Author: Lewis I. Held, Jr
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107782899
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
How did the zebra really get its stripes, and the giraffe its long neck? What is the science behind camel humps, leopard spots, and other animal oddities? Such questions have fascinated us for centuries, but the expanding field of evo-devo (evolutionary developmental biology) is now providing, for the first time, a wealth of insights and answers. Taking inspiration from Kipling's 'Just So Stories', this book weaves emerging insights from evo-devo into a narrative that provides startling explanations for the origin and evolution of traits across the animal kingdom. Held's unique and engaging style makes this narrative both enlightening and entertaining, guiding students and researchers through even complex concepts and encouraging a fuller understanding of the latest developments in the field. The first five chapters cover the first bilaterally symmetric animals, flies, butterflies, snakes, and cheetahs. A final chapter surveys recent results about a menagerie of other animals.

Two Bad Ants

Two Bad Ants PDF Author: Chris Van Allsburg
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780395486689
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 31

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Book Description
When two bad ants desert from their colony, they experience a dangerous adventure that convinces them to return to their former safety.