When the seasons change, many animals migrate to new homes. Readers will learn about these fascinating creatures in Nature’s Great Journeys. This series explores the physical features, behaviors, and histories of migratory animals with easy-to-read text and vivid images. This is an AV2 media enhanced book. A unique book code printed on page 2 unlocks multimedia content. This book comes alive with video, audio, weblinks, slide shows, activities, quizzes, and much more.
Every year over a million wildebeest, march in tandem to cover thousands of kilometres through the unending plains of Serengeti. It is a perilous journey, where they must brave disease, cross crocodile-infested rivers, and stave off hunger. After all that, they return to the same place they started, Ngorongoro valley, where after a brief rest they start the journey again next year. It is the circle of life. One such wildebeest is young and curious Jero, whose dreams and questions are bigger than her tiny frame. She wants to see the world, she wants to lead the migration, she wants to be the hero - she wants it all. Along with her two friends - strong and noble, Fala and nervous and unsure, Nemy; she wants an adventure filled life. A cruel twist of fate may just make her wish come true and it will be nothing like she had expected. Jero’s Journey is a relentless adventure through the breathtaking landscape of Serengeti filled with encounters with interesting characters like paranoid ostriches, an over friendly zebra, the wise giraffe, elephants, hippos, rhinos and many others. On a journey where danger lurks at every turn, Jero will be faced with hard challenges and harder decisions. In order to survive and lead she must battle the foes of predators, famines, rivers on the outside as well as overcome the ones that are on the inside - fear, doubt and self-centeredness. Jero must learn that in order to lead the herd, she must not guide it, but be guided by it.
From the elegant, lithe, and yes, friendly cheetah to the diminutive and faithful sea horse, and from the giant and surprisingly warlike hippopotamus to the majestic gorilla, animals have long fascinated humans. In this appealing book, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson draws from his wealth of knowledge and a lifetime of fascination with the animal kingdom to present little-known facts and thorough explanations for behaviors of animals both familiar and lesser-known. Presented from A to Z, each entry is accompanied by a beautiful, full-color photograph. Readers will learn from someone who knows these animals and loves them as much as you do.
Folktales can be described as fictional prose narratives that are not confined to any particular culture. A folktale may appear in a slightly different form in a culture that is geographically nearby, or it may appear in a culture that is quite far removed from its original source. In The Zebra’s Stripes and other African Tales, Dianne Stewart has retold a collection of folk tales that have their origins all over Africa. Aimed at children and adults, these tales include legends such as ‘How Lion and Warthog became Enemies’ from the Lamba people of Togo, ‘How Giraffe Acquired his Long Neck’ from East Africa, ‘Why Hippopotamus Lives in the Water’ from Nigeria and ‘Monkey The Musician’ from South Africa. There are tales from the San, Zulu, Zambia, Congo and West Africa, et al. Each section is devoted to a type of animal, and concludes with some facts about the animal in question, adding educational to the stories. Proverbs from various cultures provide additional insight. Throughout, Kathy Pienaar’s beautiful illustrations show great attention to detail.
Lizards dashing rapidly between plants. Songbirds and woodpeckers flying to and from their nests. Hawks perched on saguaros. What kinds of journeys have these and many other animals and plants and their ancestors taken in space and time to arrive in the Sonoran Desert? How long have these species been living together here? In Sonoran Desert Journeys ecologist Theodore H. Fleming discusses two remarkable journeys. First, Fleming offers a brief history of our intellectual and technical journey over the past three centuries to understand the evolution of life on Earth. Next, he applies those techniques on a journey of discovery about the evolution and natural history of some of the Sonoran Desert’s most iconic animals and plants. Fleming details the daily lives of a variety of reptiles, birds, mammals, and plants, describing their basic natural and evolutionary histories and addressing intriguing issues associated with their lifestyles and how they cope with a changing climate. Finally, Fleming discusses the complexity of Sonoran Desert conservation. This book explores the evolution and natural history of iconic animals and plants of the northern Sonoran Desert through the eyes of a curious naturalist and provides a model of how we can coexist with the unique species that call this area home.
With more than 300 vivid photographs, this inspirational guide reveals the planet's best destinations for hikers, skiers, divers, rafters, and more. Combining adventure with cultural experiences, this one-of-a-kind collection leads readers to new heights of exploration.
Why do zebras have stripes? Popular explanations range from camouflage to confusion of predators, social facilitation, and even temperature regulation. It is a challenge to test these proposals on large animals living in the wild, but using a combination of careful observations, simple field experiments, comparative information, and logic, Caro concludes that black-and-white stripes are an adaptation to thwart biting fly attack.
Two neuroscientists reveal why consciousness exists and how it works by examining eighteen increasingly intelligent minds, from microbes to humankind—and beyond. Why do you exist? How did atoms and molecules transform into sentient creatures that experience longing, regret, compassion, and even marvel at their own existence? What does it truly mean to have a mind—to think? Science has offered few answers to these existential questions until now. Journey of the Mind is the first book to offer a unified account of the mind that explains how consciousness, language, self-awareness, and civilization arose incrementally out of chaos. The journey begins three billion years ago with the emergence of the universe’s simplest possible mind. From there, the book explores the nanoscopic archaeon, whose thinking machinery consists of a handful of molecules, then advances through amoebas, worms, frogs, birds, monkeys, and humans, explaining what each “new” mind could do that previous minds could not. Though they admire the triumph of human consciousness, Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam argue that humans are hardly the most sophisticated minds on the planet. The same physical principles that produce human self-awareness are leading cities and nation-states to develop “superminds,” and perhaps planting the seeds for even higher forms of consciousness. Written in lively, accessible language accompanied by vivid illustrations, Journey of the Mind is a mind-bending work of popular science, the first general book to share the cutting-edge mathematical basis for consciousness, language, and the self. It shows how a “unified theory of the mind” can explain the mind’s greatest mysteries—and offer clues about the ultimate fate of all minds in the universe.
