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.
Why do giraffes have such long necks? Why are zebras striped? And why does the clitoris of the female hyena exactly resemble and in most respects function like the male's penis?Deploying the latest scientific research and his own extensive observations in Africa, Léo Grasset offers answers to these questions and many more in a book of post-Darwinian Just So stories. Complex natural phenomena are explained in simple and at times comic terms, as Grasset turns evolutionary biology to the burning questions of the animal kingdom, from why elephants prefer dictators and buffaloes democracies, to whether the lion really is king.The human is, of course, just another animal, and the author's exploration of two million years of human evolution shows how it not only informs our current habits and behavior, but reveals that we are hybrids of several different species.Prepare to be fascinated, shocked and delighted, as well as reliably advised — by the end, you will know to never hug the beautiful, cuddly honey badger, and what explains its almost psychotic nastiness.This is serious science at its entertaining best.
With a simple text and vivid full-color photographs, Stephen R. Swinburne shows children a wide range of nature's exquisite designs. He invites children to open their eyes and look for patterns in water and on land, in the air and on the ground, and in their own neighborhoods. They will see the world as they've never seen it before.
Little Zebra is having a very odd day. Can you help him search for his stripes? ‚With interactive lift-the-flap pages and gorgeous illustrations by Jedda Robaard, join Little Zebra on his adventures as he hunts for his missing stripes.
This is the story of Zane, a zebra with autism who worries that his differences make him stand out from his peers. With careful guidance from his mother, Zane learns that autism is only one of many qualities that make him special. Contains a “Note to Parents” by Drew Coman, PhD, and Ellen Braaten, PhD, as well as a Foreword by Alison Singer, President of the Autism Science Foundation.
As a group of African animals hang out at the local watering hole, they share funny stories about how the zebra got its stripes. At the end of the book, fun facts explain why zebras really have stripes. For any child intrigued by zebras, this colorful, informative book is a must!
Coated in wonderful stripes of black and white, Mary the zebra often spent her mornings munching on Serengeti grass with her family. One morning, an unfamiliar face trotted over the hill by her field. Join Mary and her friends as they uncover the importance of acceptance and what it means to make diversity our strength.
If the zebras lost their stripes and became different from one another, some white and some black, would they turn and fight each other and stop living life as loving friends?
Why do giraffes have such long necks? Why are zebras striped? Why are buffalo herds broadly democratic while elephants prefer dictatorships? What explains the architectural brilliance of the termite mound or the complications of the hyena's sex life? And why have honey-badgers evolved to be one of nature's most efficient agents of mass destruction?Deploying the latest scientific research and his own extensive observations on the African savannah, Léo Grasset offers some answers to these and many other intriguing questions. Having shown that natural phenomena are rarely simple and that often they get more complex the more you look at them, he brings to bear a mix of evolutionary biology and lateral thinking to explain the mysteries of animal behaviour in terms that are simple but never simplifying. He ends by considering how our origins in the savannah and evolution as the hybrid of several species can shapes our habits.Léo Grasset is one of France's brightest young natural scientists. Prepare to be fascinated, delighted, surprised, shocked and, above all, entertained by his brilliantly original Darwinian Just So stories.
