Overview
Life on planet earth is not weirder than we imagine. It’s weirder than we are capable of imagining. And we’re all in it together: humans, blue whales, rats, birds of paradise, ridiculous numbers of beetles, molluscs the size of a bus, the sexual gladiators of slugs, bdelloid rotifers who haven’t had sex for millions of years and creatures called water bears: you can boil them, freeze them and fire them off into space without killing them.
We’re all part of the animal kingdom, appearing in what Darwin called “endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful." In this breathtakingly audacious book, Simon Barnes has brought us all together, seeking not what separates us but what unites us. He takes us white-water rafting through the entire animal kingdom in a book that brings in deep layers of arcane knowledge, the works of Darwin and James Joyce, Barnes’s own don’t-try-this-at-home adventures in the wild, David Attenborough and Sherlock Holmes. Ten Million Aliens opens your eyes to the real marvels of the planet we live on.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781476730363 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Simon & Schuster |
| Publication date: | 02/13/2024 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 481 |
| Sales rank: | 299,831 |
| File size: | 6 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Ten Million Aliens
Table of Contents
Endlessness Demodex mites, humans 15
Sex and the single slug Slugs 19
2, 8,10,12,13,18: Mammals and Mammaries 22
Champagne Lifestyle New species 25
Allspice, ant-killer Taxonomy and Systematics 28
Orang orang Orang-utan and other primates 33
My family and other family Classification 36
Below the drop-off Carol 39
Lemurs and archbishops Spineless Primates 42
Introduction to invertebrates 45
Long-jump gold medal Bushbaby 48
Architects of human culture Wasps 50
The lion, the glitch and the glove compartment Lion 53
Brother sponge Sponges 58
The profile of Winnie-the-Pooh Bears 61
Neon Meate Dream of a Octafish Glass Sponge 65
Il buono, il brutto e il cattivo Hyena 68
Sod the rainforest Moral coral 72
The Half-and-halfters seals 76
Walking plants Sea anemones 81
Wimbledon champion Bovids 84
Infernal agony of gelatinous zooplankton Jellyfish 89
Walking with Jechwe Lechwe and genenuk 92
Life in the round starfish 98
Do I know you? Naked more rat 101
Flatworm, flatworm, buring bright Flatworm 104
The elephant in the corridor Elephant 108
The holiness of tapeworms Tampworm 113
Plan A for aardvark Aardvark 116
Unkillable bears Tardigrades 119
Flying flashers Idiuris 123
Cans and cans of worms Nematodes 127
Self-sharpening chisels Rodents 130
Tipping the velvet worm Velvet worm 134
Dirty rats Rats 138
Another can of worms Anniled Worm 142
Good old Ratty Water-vole and dormouse 145
Trio for piano, bassoon and earthworm Earthworm 142
Night-leaper Spring - hare 153
The daughters or Doris Ribbon Worms 155
Flashin' sunshine children Shrews 158
Because I am many Bryozons 160
That breathtaking breath Whales 161
Getting silly Lampshells 166
Song of the sea 168
Dirty beasts Penis worms 171
Gnomes of the river River dolphins 173
Us alone Placazoatts 176
Disgustingly upside down Bats 178
Lacing Venus's girdle Comb jellies 182
The altruistic vampire Vampire bats I84
Here be mud dragons Mud dragons 187
Pocket dynamo Nematnniorphs 193
The Hamlet worm Marsupials 193
Death comes for the Elephant's Child Afore elephants 195
Who needs oxygen? Loricifera 200
Epiphany Even more elephants 202
A bit samey Arrow worms 205
Time for transition Platypus 207
The peanut trick Peanut worms 210
Fearher Kestrel 212
No sex please, we're bdelloids Rotifers 216
The nausea of Charles Darwin Peacock 219
Evolution in reverse? Thorny-headed worms 222
How many ways of catching a fish? Toucan, river birds 224
****! Hairy-backs 227
Look, no stabilizers Batcleur 229
The crypto-bums Goblet worms 234
Same bat time, same bat hawk Bat bowk 236
Lobsterisimus bumakissimus Symbions 241
The dark side Owls 243
Is-ness Jaw worms 247
Crisis relocation Terns 250
The Quaker worm Xenoturbellids 254
Swift scramming frenzy Swifts 257
Gutless, brainless Acoelomorphs 260
Jewels that breathe Hummingbirds 262
Just one more thing Phoronids 266
The wardrobe bird Flamingos 269
James Bond and the kraken Giant squid 273
Instant birder Lilac-breasted roller 277
Superslug Octopus 280
The Clever Club Crows 284
Nautilus but nice Nautilus 288
Bell-bear of their wings Swans 291
She sells seashells Shell-wearing molluscs 295
22:1 Albatross 298
Fearful the death of the diver must be Giant clam 302
No flying, please, we're birds Flightless birds 305
Valuing oysters Oysters 309
Do I contradict myself? Penguins 311
One more twist Gastropods 314
Hijoputido Passerines 317
Creeping like snail Giant African, land, snail 321
Wild thing Marsh warbler 325
On our last legs Arthropods 329
Blood-chilling Crocodile 333
A suit of armour Japanese, spider crab 337
Snakes, unclad humans and a garden Snakes 340
Beloved barnacles Barnacles 344
Secret snakes Adder 348
The silk route Spiders 351
Disgusting clumsy lizards Lizards 354
The Kalahari Ferrari Solifygids 357
Good luck, little metaphor Turtles 360
Twenty centimetres! Centipedes 364
Shape-shifters Amphibians 367
Second innings Large blue butterfly 371
When I was a rain god Frogs 375
Laser epiphany Blue, morpbo 379
Death by frog Golden poison frog 383
Les demoiselles du Waveney Dragonflies 387
A miraculous draught of newts Newts 392
Cannibal sex Praying mantis 395
Beautiful shirts Gaecilians 398
Unreal city Termites 401
"Fish" Fish 405
True bugs suck Bugs 408
The stillness of salmon
Salmon 411
Let copulation thrive Flies 414
The Eden fish Clear Fish 418
Prostitutes and clients Bees 423
That's no parasite: that's my husband Anglerfish 427
The wasp and the devil's chaplain Wasps 430
The sinking fish Sharks 434
The best butter Butterflies and months 438
No bones about it Cartilaginous, fish 442
Inordinate fondness and all that Beetles 445
Ray of Sunshine Manta ray 451
Axis of weevil Weevils 454
Epilogue The beginning Jawless fish, lobe-finned fish 457