Why Elephants Have Big Ears: Understanding Patterns of Life on Earth Book

Any parents of inquisitive six-year-olds will know the strangely tricky questions they sometimes ask about animals. How come polar bears don't get flu? Why are ants so pitifully small? And what's the point of wasps? For some reason the biology and zoology we learn, read and watch on television doesn't quite give the answers to these unsettlingly piercing queries. Until now. In an invigorating departure from normal hard-bitten evolutionary biology, British academic Chris Lavers has decided to come at his subject from an oblique, almost schoolboyish angle. Drawing on the fossil record as much as in-the-field research, he finds the answers to all the above questions, and meanwhile discusses the whereabouts of dragons, the long term future of ocean-going goats, and, yes, the reason why elephants have big ears (they help the animal lose heat). Lavers's style is light but learned, impish but authoritative. Perhaps the volume would have benefited from a few photos (particularly of the wonderfully named naked mole rat); perhaps the text would have gained from some background science. But for a sure-fire way to silence that pesky little nephew, Lavers's effort is a winner.--Sean ThomasRead More