The Book of Animal Universes

‘Ahmed El-Deeb captures what is astonishing in science and narrates it with the aesthetic craft of literature and art, producing contemplative texts that are captivating and invite deep reflection and thought. What an achievement!’ Mohamed El-Makhzangi. In the pages of this illustrated book we will meet fish that can recognise themselves, mice that converse in song, whales that toy with their prey, beetles that play with light and use it as a weapon for survival, snakes that are artists at cooking poisons, spiders skilled at acting, frogs that build castles, real dragons armoured in heavy plates, wasps worthy of starring in horror films, owls that terrorise their prey by moonlight, lions that managed to threaten the empire on which the sun never set, unknown creatures that dwell in the darkness of the deep, legends of ancient creatures that dominated the earth for millions of years before going extinct, tales of new creatures that could threaten the whole world with extinction, and other boundless wonders from the universes of animals. Louis Leakey was not disappointed: before long Jane Goodall sent him a remarkable observation that no scientist had ever recorded, or perhaps even imagined. An old chimpanzee with a grey-streaked beard, whom Goodall therefore named David Greybeard, was stripping a slender twig of its leaves, wetting it with his saliva, and pushing that sticky ‘fishing rod’ into the openings of termite mounds to draw out his precious catch of protein-rich insects! Within days the whole troop was following the example of the grey-bearded elder: hunter, toolmaker and teacher! And in November 1960 a telegram came back to Goodall with Leakey’s reply: ‘Now we must redefine tool, redefine man, or accept chimpanzees as humans.’