Discover the captivating world of the echidnaThere are few animals more unusual than the echidna – a spiky, egg-laying mammal that eats ants. But some of the most striking things about echidnas are things most of us don't know. That they use their snout like a snorkel when they swim, that they can sense electromagnetic fields, that they have intriguingly complex brains, startling physical strength and 'backwards' back feet. That they go into torpor when conditions are poor and ca...

**Winner of the 2023 Whitley Award for Popular EcologyA New Scientist Best Popular Science Book of the Year"This is the book I’ve been waiting for." —Sy Montgomery, author of The Soul of an OctopusAn Australian biologist delves into the extraordinary world of koalas, from their ancient ancestors to the current threats to their survival.**Koalas regularly appeared in Australian biologist Danielle Clode’s backyard, but it was only when a bushf...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY AWARD 2019'Have you met Mrs Edith Coleman? If not you must - I am sure you will like her - she's just A1 and a splendid naturalist.'In 1922, a 48-year-old housewife from Blackburn delivered her first paper, on native Australian orchids, to the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria. Over the next thirty years, Edith Coleman would write over 300 articles on Australian nature for newspapers, magazines and scientific...

While British soldiers and settlers colonised Australia, French scientists continued to explore its coastlines and study its strange flora and fauna.Lapérouse and Labillardière, Baudin and Bougainville and others left their own, lighter marks on the country in the name of human knowledge.This is their story—deeply researched and richly imagined by zoologist and award-winning science writer Danielle Clode.Winner of the Victorian Premier's Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-...

A voyage of discovery, nature and untold histories - in the vein of Clare Wright, Edmund de Waal and Helen Macdonald.When the first woman to circumnavigate the world completed her journey in 1775, she returned home without any fanfare at all.Jeanne Barret, an impoverished peasant from Burgundy, disguised herself as a man and sailed on the 1766 Bougainville voyage as the naturalist's assistant. For over two centuries, the story of who this young woman was, w...

« C’est là une approche originale et plaisante de l’histoire des sciences, et indiscutablement une belle réussite. »—Prof Eric Buffetaut, Pour la ScienceAu moment où soldats et colons britanniques occupent l’Australie, les savants français continuent d’en explorer les côtes et d’y étudier la faune et la flore.La Pérouse et Labillardière, Baudin et Bougainville et bien d’autres encore y laissèrent leurs traces de chercheurs.Ce livre est leur histoire ...

Age range 9+John Albert Long is an Australian paleontologist who is currently Strategic Professor in Palaeontology at Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia. He was previously the Vice President of Research and Collections at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. He is also an author of popular science books. His main area of research is on the fossil fish of the Late Devonian Gogo Formation from northern Western Australia. It has yielded many...

Fire has shaped the Australian landscape and the lives of Australians for thousands of years—and will continue to do so as the climate changes. For all our advances in prevention and prediction, planning and communication, bushfires keep claiming our lives and our homes. How can we avoid another Ash Wednesday or Black Saturday?Danielle Clode has lived in the bushfire danger zone and studied the past and recent history of fire management and fire-fighting. Here she tells the complex...

Koalas regularly appeared in Australian biologist Danielle Clode's backyard, but it was only when a bushfire threatened that she truly paid them attention.In vivid, descriptive prose, Clode embarks on a delightful and surprising journey through evolutionary biology, natural history, and ecology to understand where these enigmatic animals came from and what their future may hold. She begins her search with the fossils of ancient giant koalas, delving into why the modern koala has be...

Comprehensive, accessible, and lavishly illustrated, this is an essential and timely guide to the world's key plant and fungus species.Written by specialists, Plants and Fungi is a botanical exploration of the world's most fascinating plant and fungus species, many of which are also highly valued for their ecological, economic, and cultural importance.Covering all of the main groups—from the fleeting wildflowers that bring life to deserts to the to...

**A Scientific American Best Staff Read of 2023“Irresistible.” —PeopleA moving account of raising, then freeing, an orphaned screech owl, whose lasting friendship with the author illuminates humanity’s relationship with the world.**When ecologist Carl Safina and his wife, Patricia, took in a near-death baby owl, they expected that, like other wild orphans they’d rescued, she’d be a temporary presence. But Alfie’s feathers were not growing correctly...

One of the Washington Post's 50 Best Nonfiction Books of 2024The bestselling author of Other Minds shows how we and our ancestors have reinvented our planet.If the history of the Earth were compressed down to a year, our species would arise in the last thirty minutes or so of the final hour. But life itself is not such a late arrival: It has existed on Earth for something like 3.7 billion years—most of our planet’s history...