The Flight of the Iguana : A Sidelong View of Science and Nature

From the award-winning author of The Song of the Dodo comes a collection of essays in which various weird and wonderful aspects of nature are examined. This book contains tales of vegetarian piranha fish, voiceless dogs, and a scientific search for the genes that threaten to destroy the cheetah.

as He Examines Everything From Species Survival On Islands To Vegetarian Piranhas, Quammen's Funny And Offbeat Essays Offer A Unique Glimpse Of The Natural World And, At The Same Time, Clarify The Larger Biological Issues And Their Effect On Humankind.

publishers Weekly

quammen's Columns In Outdoor Magazine Are Famed As An Entertaining Source Of Offbeat Information. In This Collection, He Casts Sidelong Glances At Creationism And Extinction, At Giant Earthworms And Canada Geese. But He Takes A Direct View At The Plight Of Salvadoran Refugees And At The Sanctuary Movement; He Accompanied One Group On A Dramatic Journey Across The Sonoran Desert. Quammen Examines The Special Problems Of Species Survival On Islands (and Tells Us What Is Happening To The Birds Of Guam); He Discusses The Unusually Small Gene Pool Of Cheetahs And How The Papago Indians Survive In Desert Lands. There Is A Piece About Visiting The Okefenokee Swamp, While The Title Essay Is Set In The Galapagos. Readers Who Enjoyed Natural Acts Will Find Quammen's New Collection Equally Interesting. (june)

From the award-winning author of The Tangled Tree and The Song of the Dodo comes a collection of essays in which various weird and wonderful aspects of nature are examined. From tales of vegetarian piranha fish and voiceless dogs to the scientific search for the genes that threaten to destroy the cheetah, Quammen captures the natural world with precision. Throughout, he illuminates the surprising intricacies of the natural world, and our human attitudes towards those intricacies. A distinguished essayist, Quammen's reporting is masterful and thought provoking and his curiosity and fascination with the world of living things is infectious. The author brings to life the weird and wonderful pageant of nature in essays ranging from tales of vegetarian piranha to dogs without voices One evening a few years ago I walked back into my office after dinner and found roughly a hundred black widow spiders frolicking on my desk. A Simon & Schuster eBook. Simon & Schuster has a great book for every reader