The spread of empires in the nineteenth century brought more than new territories and populations under Western sway. Animals were also swept up in the net of imperialism, as jungles and veldts became colonial ranches and plantations. A booming trade in animals turned many strange and dangerous species into prized commodities. Tigers from India, pythons from Malaya, and gorillas from the Congo found their way—sometimes by shady means—to the zoos of major U.S. cities, where they created a s...

Gerda, the Brave Giraffe is a kids story presented by Siemens Healthineers

In 2007, a massive, concentrated deposit of dinosaur fossils, some of theoldest ever found, were discovered in the mountain ridges of northernBritish Columbia, near an old coal mining town. The site contained thelargest number of tyrannosaur teeth ever found with another species, anunfortunate lambeousaur who¹d been scavenged by a pack of hyena-likejuvenile predators millions of years ago. The small group of paleontologistsdigging the site have had to keep its location a secret to protect ...

Migratory songbirds are disappearing at a frightening rate. By some estimates, we may have already lost almost half the songbirds that filled the skies only 40 years ago. Following the birds on their 10,000-kilometre migratory journey, Bridget Stutchbury looks at the most threatening factors in their extinction, from pesticides, still a major concern decades after Rachel Carson first raised the alarm, to the destruction of vital habitat; from the bright lights and structures in our cities—...

J. M. Adovasio has spent the last thirty years at the center of one of our most fiery scientific debates: Who were the first humans in the Americas, and how and when did they get there?At its heart, The First Americans is the story of the revolution in thinking that Adovasio and his fellow archaeologists have brought about, and the firestorm it has ignited. As he writes, “The work of lifetimes has been put at risk, reputations have been damaged, an astounding amount of sil...

Rain is elemental, mysterious, precious, destructive.It is the subject of countless poems and paintings; the top of the weather report; the source of the world's water. Yet this is the first book to tell the story of rain.Cynthia Barnett's Rain begins four billion years ago with the torrents that filled the oceans, and builds to the storms of climate change. It weaves together science—the true shape of a raindrop, the mysteries of frog and fish rains—with ...

Tortoises disappear from a Madagascar reserve and reappear in the Bronx Zoo. A dead iguana floats in a jar, awaiting its unveiling in a Florida court. A viper causes mayhem from Ethiopia to Virginia. In Stolen World, Jennie Erin Smith takes the reader on an unforgettable journey, a dark adventure over five decades and six continents.In 1965, Hank Molt, a young cheese salesman from Philadelphia, reinvented himself as a “specialist dealer in rare fauna,” tra...

This may be hard to believe but it is very likely that more people live in closer proximity to more wild animals, birds and trees in the eastern United States today than anywhere on the planet at any time in history. For nature lovers, this should be wonderful news -- unless, perhaps, you are one of more than 4,000 drivers who will hit a deer today, your child’s soccer field is carpeted with goose droppings, coyotes are killing your pets, the neighbor’s cat has turned your bird feeder into...

Veteran environmental journalist Fred Pearce used to think of invasive species as evil interlopers spoiling pristine ‘natural’ ecosystems. Most conservationists would agree. But what if traditional ecology is wrong, and true environmentalists should be applauding the invaders?In The New Wild, Pearce goes on a journey to rediscover what conservation should really be about. He explores ecosystems from Pacific islands to the Australian outback to the Thames estuary, digs into the ques...

The Field Guide to Bigfoot and Other Mystery Primates is a comprehensive study of the astonishing variety of puzzling primates that are being reported by eyewitnesses around the world  but that science has failed to recognize. This fully illustrated volume not only contains the references, range maps, and typical footprints that appeared in the first edition, but it also contains a new, complete index and new preface that updates the discoveries made since this book was first publishe...

A prizewinning poet and nature writer weaves together natural history, biology, sociology, and personal narrative to tell the story of the lives, habitats, and deaths of six extinct bird species.

Until about 13,000 years ago, North America was home to a menagerie of massive mammals. Mammoths, camels, and lions walked the ground that has become Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles and foraged on the marsh land now buried beneath Chicago's streets. Then, just as the first humans reached the Americas, these Ice Age giants vanished forever. In Once and Future Giants, science writer Sharon Levy digs through the evidence surrounding Pleistocene large animal ("megafauna") extinction...