Animal Earth
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Animal Earth was released in the UK in the middle of September, 2013. It has so far been covered very widely in the media (take a look here) and has received many excellent reviews. It was released in North America in the middle of November, 2013. Paperback released in Europe and North America in March, 2015.
I’ve always been mesmerised by the incredible diversity of animals. Not just the stuff you always see on natural history programmes, but the constellation of other creatures we share the planet with.
Animal Earth is the book I’ve wanted to write ever since I started studying zoology, prompted by the countless hours spent poring over Rupert and Barnes’ unparalleled Invertebrate Zoology. As good as Ruppert and Barnes’ tome is it’s ultimately a black and white text intended for students. My aim with Animal Earth is to get across how bizarre, how beautiful and how overlooked most animals are in a way that just about anyone can flick through and enjoy.
We’ve only just scratched the surface of understanding animal diversity, but we can be certain that the familiar animals (mammals, birds, etc) account for only a fraction of 1% of the total species diversity. What about the others? What do they look like and how do they live? Animal Earth is an unbiased tour of all the main animal lineages, from comb-jellies to jaw-animals and everything in between.
Animal Earth is an impartial celebration and exploration of animal diversity, drawing on the latest research into how the animal lineages are related, how they live and their origins. It’s 320 pages long and is illustrated throughout with 540 spectacular colour photos, SEMs and illustrations – some of which can be seen below. I sourced the best images I could find, which was a mammoth task in itself, but the book is way more than just a compendium of pretty pictures. It’s packed with bang-up-to-date information and is essentially an introductory, zoology text.
The book has received lots of incredible reviews. Andreas Hejnol, who’s at the forefront of research into trying to understand how the animals became so spectacularly diverse, left this review on Amazon, which I was absolutely chuffed to see:
“Truly amazing. What a book. These pictures are amazing and the writing fantastic and state of the art. Get this book for students, family and lab members and everybody who is interested in animal diversity.”
Currently there are UK and North American hardback editions, both of which have sold out. A hardback German edition was released in 2014 and a Japanese edition was published in May 2016. Softback editions for the UK and North America were released in March, 2015. Here’s the book on Amazon.com
A FREE sample chapter of my favourite animals, the arthropods, can be found here: