Darwin's writings as an independent naturalist on the HMS Beagle between 1831 and 1836 capture the natural world's beauty in his own sublime language. In a travel journal which takes us from the coasts and interiors of South America to the South Sea Islands, his descriptive powers are constantly challenged, but never once overcome. Here is his speculative mind at work, posing questions about the Earth's structure, animal forms, anthropology and the origins of life itself. 480 page reprint in paperback. Line illus.

Probably designed for children aged nine and up, all ages will appreciate the striking graphic stamps from printmaker Tom Frost in his beautiful and illuminating journey through the world of endangered animals. Jenkins is a conservation biologist who has worked for WWF and the UN and here he celebrates the mighty Asian elephant to the tiny rosalia longicorn beetle, the red-crowned crane, the polar bear, Grévy's zebra, the variable harlequin frog, indri, numbat, black rhinoceros, Tapanuli orangutan, the Amsterdam albatross, the blue whale, Iberian lynx, Galapagos giant tortoise, golden lion tamarin, largetooth sawfish, African wild dog, Sunda pangolin, Korean club tail dragonfly and okapi among them. For each, for example the okapi, the outlined and coloured graphic art of the animal looking at the viewer is framed by First Class Post, the country of origin such as Congo or Republic of Korea, and in the top corners local currency for example 800 franc as if it were an actual postage stamp with serrated edges. Opposite each huge full page colour artwork is a whole piece on the endangered animal together with a locator map, its class, family, IUCN status, numbers if known and where it is found. 30 endangered animals calling for help like never before, each is exquisitely illustrated as a stamp of the country where it lives. Take an armchair trip around the world and find out all about these beautiful creatures and how we can save them from extinction. 64pp, 25.8cm x 33.6cm.

'From beak to tail feather and from flipper to fin, this is a book that will long be known, read and savoured.' - James W. Muller of the International Churchill Society. One of Winston Churchill's key characteristics was his fascination with the animal kingdom, and he was a bold rider whether in the realm of sport, politics or war. Born prematurely on 30th November 1874 in his grandfather's magnificent residence Blenheim Palace, the nucleus of the estate was teeming with animals, domestic and wild, the former to be cherished and the latter killed. The young Winston unhesitatingly adopted hunting, shooting and fishing while doting on the horses, hounds and other furred or feathered friends, and he fished well into old age. In this intriguing book we meet his pet cats, poodles, budgerigars and golden orfe, via horses, swans, parrots and butterflies to his own lion, leopard and white kangaroos kept at London Zoo. Churchill even tried to acquire a duck-billed platypus. He identified with animals signing boyhood letters home 'The Pussy Cat' and deliberately personifying the British bulldog as wartime Prime Minister. This charming book is based on original sources but follows the pattern of ancient bestiaries, A to Z beginning with Albatross. The chief proponent of the Government of India Bill, the Secretary of State Sir Samuel Hoare was an old enemy of Churchill's who would win the vote. So Churchill suggested that the victory would be to him what killing the albatross had been to Coleridge's Ancient Mariner. Next entry is Alligators and the next three paragraphs in this extraordinary range of biographical material, this time informing us that Churchill approved of London Zoo's plan to swap two Père David's deer for a pair of Chinese alligators and another reference to his amusing remark to the diarist Harold Nicolson about Britain's appeasement policy in 1938. With all manner of fabulous beasts, rare photographs throughout the text, extensive notes, a timeline of Churchill's life and beautiful endpaper colour image of his spectacular library. 320pp.

Published by the Natural History Museum the author is internationally known for his research on the evolution and ecology of plants. Nature's Web is solar powered driven by the energy that land plants and ocean phytoplankton capture from sunlight and lock away in carbon compounds in their cells. Plants and phytoplankton not only feed all life on the planet, but by capturing carbon dioxide they help control the concentration of this gas in the Earth's atmosphere. Their capacity to lock-up carbon is now overwhelmed by the amount that we are returning to the atmosphere through burning fossil fuels such as coal and oil which now threatens to heat our world to levels that will change it beyond recognition. Regulation of the climate is just one of the services that biodiversity provides to humanity. Geologists of the future may look back at this mass extinction as equivalent to the one that ended the reign of the reptiles. A quarter of our mammals are threatened, 40% of amphibians and perhaps a quarter of land plants. All major ocean fisheries are over-exploited and many have collapsed. Life in freshwaters is threatened by pollution, over-extraction of water for human use, and by invasions of non-native species that destroy the fabric of nature's web. Climate change is tugging at the links in the web, threatening to dislocate relationships with unpredictable consequences. What can we do? We must halt deforestation, restore habitats and fisheries, create and protect reserves for nature, find sustainable livelihoods for the poor and feed our growing population without endangering biodiversity. Homo sapiens or 'wise human' should be up to the task. The authors of this book are passionate about biodiversity in this book of science distilled from independent studies and subjected to peer review. The book begins with taking a look at breakfast which contains the product of many species, the human ecological footprint including population density, land transformation, electrical power infrastructure and access to land. World population projections, a warning from Easter Island way back in 1772 with the discovery of the remains of over a thousand chicken houses standing testament to the large human population that the island once supported and of course those famous statues. There are geological timescale charts, superb diagrams, fact boxes, colour photographs of astonishing occurrences like a silent seashore dogwhelk inserting its proboscis into one of the smaller mussels attached to the rocks, gorging on its soft parts. Here are coal swamps, a chart of the evolutionary radiation of mammals and an evolution atlas, an explanation of how the Amazon basin became so diverse and extraordinary wildlife pictures of butterflies and insects and mammals and leaves and crops and amphibians in crisis. Beautifully presented with hundreds of pictures, 192pp in large softback.

Welcome paperback reprint of a book first published in 1980 under the title 'The Zoo Quest Expedition: Travels in Guyana, Indonesia and Paraguay.' In 1954 a young David Attenborough had the opportunity of a lifetime, to travel the world finding rare and elusive animals for London Zoo's collection, and to film the expedition for the BBC in a new show called Zoo Quest. This is his story written in his inimitable voice of these travels. Staying with local tribes while searching for giant anteaters, Komodo Dragons in Indonesia and armadillos in Paraguay, he battles with cannibal fish, aggressive tree porcupines and escape-artist wild pigs to record the incredible beauty and biodiversity of these regions. The methods may be outdated now, but the fascination and respect for wildlife, the people and the environment are not. Now we can all travel vicariously with the old-fashioned adventurer and Britain's favourite naturalist who is an elegant and gently funny writer. See also the follow up 90905 Journeys to the Other Side of the World. 398pp in paperback reprint with 90 archive photos, three in colour.

A companion to 90904 Adventures of A Young Naturalist, the book was first published in 1981 under the title 'Journeys to the Past: Travels in New Guinea, Madagascar, and the Northern Territory of Australia', and in paperback in 2018 under the title 'Two Roads'. With some 90 photos, many colour plates and maps, we can travel vicariously with the pioneering naturalist Sir David Attenborough in his early days. Following the success of the original Zoo Quest expeditions in the late 1950s onwards the young David Attenborough embarked on further travels. From the land divers of Pentecost Island and the Sing-Sings of New Guinea to a Royal Kava ceremony on Tonga and the ancient art of the Northern Territory, this is a journey like no other. Alongside these remarkable creatures, Sir David encounters paradise birds, chameleons, Sifakas, pygmies and dancing birds, flamingos, tenrecs and mouse lemurs, the dog-headed man, babakoto, geese and goannas, painted caves and buffaloes, and the hermits of Borroloola. 'Every year for a decade, between 1954 and 1964, it was my great luck to go to the tropics and make natural history films.' 'I have left the accounts of these places and events essentially as I wrote them.' Written with his usual charm and generosity, he allows us to go along for the ride. 413pp, paperback. 90 illus. including colour plates.

Following the gripping BBC One natural history series, Life Story explains the amazing lengths to which animals will go to secure their future. Packed with dramatic pictures and stills from the programme and with a foreword by David Attenborough, it is written by the Executive Producer and the Series Producer, and best of all are the high quality close-up colour photographs, many full page, in this outsize hardback showcasing the miracles and wonders of life on earth. The chapters are organised by the following: First Steps, Growing Up, Home, Power, Courtship and Parenthood. A baby wildebeest spends eight months in its mother's womb. It then slithers out of her vent on to the open savannah and staggers to its feet. Within an hour it has to be able to walk well enough to follow her as she waders away, searching for grazing. By contrast a kangaroo is born at a mere 30 days or so, a tiny, naked, worm-like creature with stump-like forelegs and no sign whatever of rear ones. It takes refuge in its mother's skinny pouch for another ten months. The book surveys some of the most fascinating ways of dealing with the trials of life - seduction and a male satin bower bird spending years learning the skills to create a bower impressive enough for his female to consider mating with him; a male Japanese puffer fish whose way of seducing a female is to create an architectural sand construction so extraordinary that until recently no one realised it had been made by a fish. On page 15 we meet an inquisitive young langur investigating its reflection in the camera, its playful curiosity held in check by its mother. Here are transformations like the snake-mimic hawkmoth caterpillar and the false eyes of the spice bush swallow tail caterpillar. An extraordinary aerial photograph at first glance of pink and black dots show groups of flamingos with their chicks nesting in the middle of a lake red from the cyanobacteria that thrive in alkaline conditions. Marabou storks discover the breeding flamingos and are a persistent menace, striding through the colony snapping up as many chicks as possible. Here are baby humpbacks who have to drink their mothers dry, prides of lions, meerkats learning to take the sting from the scorpion, the hard life of the Arctic fox and birds and fish and sharks and eagles and grouse and chimps and the fabulous colours of the male greater bird of paradise in the final stages of his courtship display. Finally the programme makers include pictures of themselves at work achieving these astonishing images. 288pp, colour photos, 25 x 26.7cm.
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Take a deep dive with the Great Whites and chart the survival of a species with Michael Muller's call to arms in a book of breakthrough underwater photography. Dr Allison Kock writes about the sharks in this book as we take a look at a decade at sea and the expeditions, shark statistics, conservation resources, but best of all huge quality underwater photography in both striking black and white and colour marine blue. See the red mouths and jagged teeth exposed, the tiny fearsome eyes and the even tinier bodies of the skilful photographer-divers. A mother feeds her young in the cool blue shallow waters, striped fish circle a Great White, a Hammerhead grazes along the sand at the bottom of an ocean, sharks fight, feed and are cleaned, eye a big colourful catch or skim below the surface. With picture index from Guadalupe Island, to bull sharks in Beqa May 2011, a lemon shark in Grand Bahama Island November 2014, a black tip, blue sharks, mako, nurse sharks and tiger sharks, silky sharks and many great whites and with short descriptions of each. The furthest distance travelled by a tagged shark is 34,500 miles, and the years since sharks' bodies have evolved significantly is 140 million years and 440 million years since sharks first appeared. Apologies if the gatefold page is damaged at the fold in an otherwise mint condition, now very rare Taschen publication. A big and glamorous tribute, pages unnumbered, all in colour. 24cm x 33cm.
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Despite her name, this intrepid explorer had a deep fear of fish, so to overcome her phobia she plots to travel to Thailand, learn to dive and swim with the biggest fish in the world, the mighty whale shark. Revealing, poignant, hilarious and horrific, it is a serious piece about conquering fears, personal courage, bereavement, family, the science of underwater exploration, decompression chambers and divers, and considerable knowledge about, well, fish. Studded with PADI open water manual quotations like 'No one but you can say what calls you to scuba diving', and References. 330pp.

Sub-titled 'The Science of What Makes You You' the book gets right to the heart of what makes us tick. Popular science master Brian Clegg investigates what makes you the unique individual that you are. From the atomic level through life itself to consciousness, genetics and personality, we explore how your DNA, your memories, your flesh and bone has come to be. Full of fascinating true stories featuring royal ancestors, stellar deaths, real-life hobbits, and a self-reproducing crayfish to name a few, this wide-ranging exploration is a one-of-a-kind voyage of 'self' discovery. Chapters include Exponential Doubling, Chemical Components of You, The Cosmologist's Time Machine, The Star Dust Factories, The Life Thermodynamic, Feeding the World, Climate Change is Happening, Becoming A Mega-Brain, On Automatic Pilot, Going Batty, Words At the Speed of Light, Inhuman Computers, Polls Aren't Facts, Living in Chaos, Genes and Pathways, You Are What You Eat and more. 240pp, illus. paperback.