How much does a blue whale weigh? How big is big? Using visually dazzling equivalents, How Many Elephants in a Blue Whale makes concepts like size, speed, and mass easy to grasp, and fun as well. Get the scoop on how many Eiffel Towers it takes to reach the top of Mount Everest and how fast a cheetah would have to run to outpace a Ferrarri. An irresistibly entertaining way to get a fix on how things in our world are related, this compendium is perfect for trivia lovers and those fascinated by popular science.
The blue whale is the biggest creature on Earth. But a hollow Mount Everest could hold billions of whales! And though Mount Everest is enormous, it is pretty small compared to the Earth. This book is an innovative exploration of size and proportion.
How big is big? Did you know that a blue whale's tongue weights the same as a single African elephant and that an entire whale weights the equivalent of 25 elephants? Or that a volcano can unleash the energy of 100 hydrogen bombs. Or that that 76 trombones make the same noise as a thunderclap? Journalists have long recognized that it's possible to grasp the magnitude of big things by describing them through visual equivalents or analogies, which is why they describe rainforest, for instance, as being destroyed in areas the size of Wyoming or Wales. In this fascinating and fun reference, you will discover how many times higher than Monsieur Eiffel is the Eiffel Tower, and how many Eiffel Towers there are in a Mount Everest, how many grandfathers take you back to the Jurassic period, and much much more!
Whales and elephants are iconic giants of the marine and terrestrial animal world. Both are conspicuous representatives of wildlife conservation. The issues of whaling and the ivory trade are closely linked, both legally and politically, in many ways; some obvious, and some surprising. The treatment of both whales and elephants will be politically and legally contentious for years to come, and is of great significance to conservation in general. This book examines the current state of international environmental law and wildlife conservation through a comparative analysis of the treatment of whales and elephants. In particular, it describes the separate histories of international governance of both whales and elephants, presenting the various treaties through which conservation has been implemented. It is shown that international environmental law is influenced and shaped by important political actors – many with opposing views on how best conservation, and sustainable development, principles are to be implemented. Modern environmental treaties are changing as weaknesses and loopholes are exposed in older, and possibly outdated, treaties such as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW). Such weaknesses can be seen in the efforts made by some states to circumvent or weaken CITES and the International Whaling Commission and to resume commercial whaling, and further in the efforts of countries to resume trade in ivory. The argument is made that the Convention on Biological Diversity could be used to begin reconciling opposed views and to focus conservation efforts. The argument is made that effective conservation of species cannot be achieved through individual treaties, but only through a synergistic approach involving multilateral environmental agreements – 'ecosystems of legal instruments'.
A young reader’s adaptation of The New York Times bestseller Follow researcher Carl Safina as he treks with a herd of elephants across the Kenyan landscape, then travel with him to the Pacific Northwest to track and monitor whales in their ocean home. Along the way, find out more about the interior lives of these giants of land and sea—how they play, how they fight, and how they communicate with one another, and sometimes with us, too. Weaving decades of field research with exciting new discoveries about the brain and featuring astonishing photographs taken by the author, Beyond Words: What Elephants and Whales Think and Feel gives readers an intimate and extraordinary look at what makes these animals different from us, but more important, what makes us all similar.
Animals big and small introduce pre-schoolers to basic math concepts. With the help of the colorful animals in this book, even the youngest child will be able to grasp the idea of ratio and relative size. The opening illustration shows an elephant, followed by a simple phrase "1 polar bear is smaller than an elephant." An illustration of an elephant , rather than the word, challenges young children to recall the name of the animal. Then, on the facing page, an illustration shows how many polar bears would make up one elephant. It's seven! Subsequent spreads build on this concept--turn the page and readers will discover how many lions make a polar bear, and so on. The animals become progressively smaller, until the last comparison between a lemur and flea. But the book doesn't end there. Children learn that there is one animal that is bigger than them all: a whale, and that it takes all the animals in the book to make just one. Preschoolers will enjoy this fresh approach that teaches them the names of animals as well as the concept of relative size.
An ode to marine life and the natural world, from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Hidden Life of Owls This “intimate and spirited” essay collection “offers us the whale watch most of us can only dream of” as they reveal the elusive lives of whales in the Pacific Ocean—home to orcas, humpbacks, blue, gray, and sperm whales (Sy Montgomery, author of The Soul of an Octopus). Leigh Calvez has spent a dozen years researching, observing, and probing the lives of the giants of the deep. Here, she relates the stories of nature's most remarkable creatures, including the familial orcas in the waters of Washington State and British Columbia; the migratory humpbacks; the ancient, deep-diving blue whales, the largest animals on the planet. The lives of these whales are conveyed through the work of dedicated researchers who have spent decades tracking them along their secretive routes that extend for thousands of miles, gleaning their habits and sounds and distinguishing peculiarities. Calvez author invites the reader onto a small research catamaran maneuvering among 100-foot long blue whales off the coast of California; or to join the task of monitoring patterns of humpback whale movements at the ocean surface: tail throw, flipper slap, fluke up, or blow. To experience whales is breathtaking. To understand their lives deepens our connection with the natural world.
A natural history rich in observation of the animal world and how humans participate in it, Silent Thunder is also a passionate story of scientist Katy Payne’s spiritual quest as she turns a keen eye on her role in this world. Starting with the story of her revolutionary discovery that elephants use infrasonic sounds—sounds below the range of human hearing—to communicate, Payne shares what she learned from her fascinating field research in Africa, research that reveals new insights into elephants’ social lives. When five of the elephant families she studies are the victims of culling, Payne’s approach to her research changes, as she fights valiantly to protect the elephants. The result of her research, and the touching insights gained from Africans she worked with and the elephants she studied, give a vivid impression of Payne’s view from the front lines of the natural preservation effort. Like Peter Matthiessen’s The Snow Leopard and the writings of Jane Goodall, Silent Thunder demonstrates how a commitment to all life can bring one’s own into a new focus.
