Bloomsbury presents The Great Auk: Its Extraordinary Life, Hideous Death and Mysterious Afterlife by Tim Birkhead, read by John SackvilleThe life, death and afterlife of one of the true icons of extinction, the Great AukThe great auk was a flightless, goose-sized bird superbly adapted for life at sea. This ‘penguin of the north’ once ranged across the North Atlantic, diving deep to exploit vast shoals of herring and mackerel. The s...

Award-winning writer and ornithologist Tim Birkhead takes us on an epic and dazzling journey through this mutual history with birds.Since the dawn of human history, birds have stirred our imagination, inspiring and challenging our ideas about science, faith, art and philosophy, from the ibises mummified by Ancient Egyptians and Renaissance experiments on the woodpecker to the Victorian obsessions with egg collecting and our present fight to save endangered species....

Brought to you by Penguin.Since the dawn of human history, birds have stirred our imagination, inspiring and challenging our ideas about science, faith, art and philosophy.Looking to the skies above, we have variously worshipped them as gods, hunted them for sustenance, adorned ourselves in their feathers, studied their wings to engineer flight and, more recently, attempted to protect them.In Birds and Us, award-winning wri...

Sperm Competition and Sexual Selection presents the intricate ways in which sperm compete to fertilize eggs and how this has prompted reinterpretations of breeding behavior. This book provides a theoretical framework for the study of sperm competition, which is a central part of sexual selection. It also discusses the roles of females and the relationships between paternal care in sperm competition. The chapters focusing on taxonomic development are diverse and cover all the major animal g...

'I think that, if required on pain of death to name instantly the most perfect thing in the universe, I should risk my fate on a bird's egg'Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1862How are eggs of different shapes made, and why are they the shape they are? When does the shell of an egg harden? Why do some eggs contain two yolks? How are the colours and patterns of an eggshell created, and why do they vary? And which end of an egg is laid first – the blunt end or the pointy end?

Bloomsbury presents The Most Perfect Thing by Tim Birkhead, read by Gareth Armstrong'I think that, if required on pain of death to name instantly the most perfect thing in the universe, I should risk my fate on a bird's egg'Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1862How are eggs of different shapes made, and why are they the shape they are? When does the shell of an egg harden? Why do some eggs contain two yolks? How are the colours and patterns of an eggshell created,...

What is it like to be a swift, flying at over one hundred kilometres an hour? Or a kiwi, plodding flightlessly among the humid undergrowth in the pitch dark of a New Zealand night? And what is going on inside the head of a nightingale as it sings, and how does its brain improvise?Bird Sense addresses questions like these and many more, by describing the senses of birds that enable them to interpret their environment and to interact with each other. Our affinity for birds i...

Bloomsbury presents Bird Sense by Tim Birkhead, read by John SackvilleWhat is it like to be a swift, flying at over one hundred kilometres an hour? Or a kiwi, plodding flightlessly among the humid undergrowth in the pitch dark of a New Zealand night? And what is going on inside the head of a nightingale as it sings, and how does its brain improvise?Bird Sense addresses questions like these and many more, by describing the senses of birds that enable them t...

Marijuana Botany presents the scientific knowledge and propagation techniques used to preserve and multiply vanishing Cannabis strains. Also included is information concerning Cannabis genetics and breeding used to begin plant improvement programs. The book presents scientific and horticultural principles, along with their practical applications, necessary for the breeding and propagation of Cannabis and in particular, marijuana. It will appeal not only to the professional researc...

This textbook helped to define the field of Behavioural Ecology. In this fourth edition the text has been completely revised, with new chapters and many new illustrations and full colour photographs. The theme, once again, is the influence of natural selection on behaviour – an animal's struggle to survive and reproduce by exploiting and competing for resources, avoiding predators, selecting mates and caring for offspring, – and how animal societies reflect both cooperation and conflict am...

We not only share nearly 99% of our genes with chimps, we also have some 35% in common with daffodils. Throughout much of the animal and even plant kingdoms, almost the same ancient genes code for almost the same proteins. And further, to everyone's astonishment, the genes involved in making the complex eyes of fruitflies are close matches to those involved in making the very different eyes of octopuses and people. So what leads to the nature's 'endless forms most beautiful'?The key...

Despite the widespread belief that natural is better when it comes to sex, pregnancy, and parenting, most of us have no idea what "natural" really means; the origins of our reproductive lives remain a mystery. Why are a quarter of a billion sperm cells needed to fertilize one egg? Are women really fertile for only a few days each month? How long should babies be breast-fed?In How We Do It, primatologist Robert Martin draws on forty years of research to locate the roots of ...