Extreme Nature

Extreme Nature
Mark Carwardine

A beautiful and fascinating portrait of the world’s most extreme wildlife, from the sexiest beast to the smelliest plant.The world's most devious plant, the largest flock of birds, the biggest drug user, the most dangerous love-life…here is a mind-blowing guide to the weirdest and most remarkable wildlife on our planet. Lavishly illustrated, this is a beautiful book to own as well as an unputdownable read.The entries are quirky yet informative, focusing on single species with bizarre lifestyles and impressive adaptations. The main book consists of over 150 entries, organised into four sections: Extreme Growth, Extreme Abilities, Extreme Movement and Extreme Families.Intelligently written, it is aimed at all those with an interest in wildlife. While assuming no prior knowledge on the part of its readers, it is still scientifically rigorous enough to captivate every expert. Big in format and scope, it is a gorgeous and fascinating portrait of the natural wonders of our planet.

Extreme Nature

Mark Cawardine

With Rosamund Kidman Cox

Copyright (#ulink_d9a4e006-a4ef-5c48-8cd3-cb7021e46341)

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

77–85 Fulham Palace Road

London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2005

Text © 2005 Mark Carwardine

Commissioning Editor: Helen Brocklehurst

Art Director: Mark Thomson

Editor: Rosamund Kidman-Cox

Design and layout: Richard Marston

Proofreader: Kate Parker

Index: Hilary Bird

Editorial Assistant: Julia Koppitz

Colour reproduction by Dot Gradation, Essex

Mark Carwardine asserts his moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

Source ISBN: 9780007207688

Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2014 ISBN: 9780007596614

Version: 2014-10-13

Contents

Cover (#ud976e4f3-05ab-57a2-880f-55b99769db56)

Title Page (#u4cb237e9-b9dc-5089-a555-242896b16b98)

Copyright (#ulink_5f2f2c2c-5948-590b-b01c-11826dc91ee9)

Introduction (#ulink_a975bc76-d26f-55fb-a67a-a56729167c5a)

Extreme Abilities (#ulink_431ee704-8e1a-52fb-9b5e-b50e3a2aee87)

Extreme Movement (#litres_trial_promo)

Extreme Growth (#litres_trial_promo)

Extreme Families (#litres_trial_promo)

Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)

Index (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Introduction (#ulink_c6246506-ab81-5702-973a-4a73203e12ca)

Extreme Nature is about some of the most intriguing, supernatural, out of the ordinary and extreme plants and animals on the planet. A fish that can change sex, a frog that gives birth through its mouth and a flower that smells so bad it makes people faint are in the motley collection of weird and wonderful creatures included in the book.

If proof were ever needed that fact really is stranger than fiction, then look no further than the natural world. Did you know, for example, that a bombardier beetle can blast a chemical spray that’s as hot as boiling water? Are you aware that a castor bean produces a toxin 6,000 times more deadly than cyanide? And have you ever wondered about the three-toed sloth, which has just two modes of being: asleep and not quite asleep?

It would have been hard for a science fiction writer to dream up some of the most bizarre creatures and wacky behaviour described in this book. Imagine an animal that squirts up to a quarter of its own blood at its predators – that’s the Texas horned lizard. There is a frog that can withstand being frozen to –270°C (–454°F) and a moth with a 35cm (14in) tongue. A fish that can inflate itself to become a spine-covered sphere three times its original size may sound like a character from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but it really does exist, in tropical seas around the world, in the form of the pufferfish.

One of the richest environments for such peculiar and eccentric wildlife is the sea. This is where scientists first discovered the coelacanth, for example – a strange-looking fish that was thought to have gone extinct 65 million years ago, but is now known to be alive and well and living in the western Indian Ocean. The sea is where we first set eyes on a remarkable octopus that lives a life of deception, by disguising itself as anything from a flounder or a jellyfish to a sea snake. And in the cold, dark ocean depths scientists have found shrimp-like creatures thriving 11 km (6.8 miles) below sea level. But the sea is also the most unexplored region of the world and studying its wildlife can be about as difficult and challenging as exploring outer space. Even now, there are probably huge animals lurking beneath the ocean waves as yet unseen by human eyes – and untold numbers of smaller ones. But with the help of space-age research techniques and equipment, such as deep-sea submersibles and remote-access vehicles, we are just beginning to understand the true extent of alien-like life on our own planet.

There are more outlandish creatures to discover on land, too, though many of them are likely to be the natural world’s tiddlers and relatively hard to find. But the fact that we’ve already unearthed plants that eat animals, insects capable of walking on water and frogs with baggy skin just makes scientists determined to search for new species of plants and animals and ever-more extravagant forms of behaviour. It’s hard not to wonder what secrets have yet to be unravelled in the treetops, deep underground, in hidden corners of remote tropical rainforests, or under the glare of a microscope.

Extreme Nature was written with the invaluable help of over 150 such scientists working in all corners of the globe. With their generous assistance, in just a few sentences it’s been possible to summarise some of the highlights of many years, sometimes decades, of research. Thanks to them, if you’ve ever wondered which animal has the best colour vision, if a millipede really does have a thousand legs, how fast a falcon can swoop, or which is the world’s most dangerous snake, this is the place to look.

Any study of extreme nature is inevitably full of surprises, and when it comes to superlatives, there is always another record-breaker just around the corner. But while there’s little doubt that few of the records we’ve included are absolutes, in one way or another all animals and plants have something exceptional about them that deserves our attention. It’s certainly been enormous fun corresponding with so many experts in so many different fields and, with their guidance, making the final selection.

Ultimately, the aim of the book is simply to revel in these other-worldly creatures and their outlandish behaviour. We hope you enjoy being wowed by some of their exploits.

Extreme Abilities (#ulink_d4a2e404-ea58-5a23-8069-f40760be9d03)