快猫短视频

The Ghost with Trembling Wings by Scott Weidensaul, North Point Press, 拢17.99/$24, ISBN 0374246645 Reviewed by Adrian Barnett

GILBERT鈥橲 poteroo, the Fiji petrel, Pakistan鈥檚 giant flying squirrel and the Canary Island Lazarus lizard all have just one thing in common: declared extinct, each then rose up 鈥� like Lazarus 鈥� with the discovery of an overlooked population. The Ghost with Trembling Wings records these near-miraculous events and the obsessive individuals who, against all odds and evidence, try to find species that others have written off.

Weidensaul blends tales of his own searches with the biology of supposedly extinct animals, achieving aesthetic evocation alongside thorough historical research. His tight and amusing style yields occasional descriptive gems: he tells of the loss of nine of the 15 bird species on tiny Lord Howe Island thanks to a single shipwreck (the rats survived), then recounts the strange demise of the golden toad and takes us along on the continuing search for the ivory-billed woodpecker, whose habitat was destroyed for wood to make tea chests.

As he points out, even if an expedition manages a successful 鈥渞esurrection鈥�, the problems have just begun, for 鈥渆xcept in the oddest of circumstances, any newly rediscovered species is hanging on by its fingernails鈥�. Is it worth all the fuss? Weidensaul quotes American biologist William Beebe, who wrote: 鈥淎 vanished harmony may yet again inspire the composer, but when the last individual of a race [is gone], another heaven and another earth must pass before such a one can be again.鈥� I hope this wonderful book will inspire others to join the quest.