DID you know that spiders taste with their feet, that a decapitated cockroach can live for two weeks, that a certain type of parrotfish wraps itself in a sort of foul-smelling snot before taking a nap, and that ants play? I didn’t until I read Bats Sing, Mice Giggle. I was also amazed to discover that you can remove the brain of a salamander, grind it up and pop it back in again, and the poor defiled creature will function quite normally.
Some stories stretch credulity. Plants that subsequently recognise people who have damaged them – how would that work? Others are instructive: I learned how to click like a dolphin and recognise when a horse is asleep. This book wants to tell a grand tale about our place in nature. It fails to find the big picture, but is worth a read for all the little gems it contains.
Icon Books