Skip to content
Responsive image
Vendor
Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English

CONSIDER THE PLATYPUS

Rodica Prato Maggie Ryan Sandford

Evolution through Biology's Most Baffling Beasts

Looking at 50 species, Sandford describes in what surprising ways animals have adapted to their environment and tackles mind-bending concepts of evolution.
Interested in the origins of the species? CONSIDER THE PLATYPUS uses pets such as dogs and cats as well as animal outliers like the axolotl and naked mole rat to wittily tackle mind-bending concepts about how evolution, biology, and genetics work.

CONSIDER THE PLATYPUS explores more than 50 animals to provide insight into our current understanding of evolution. Surprising, witty, and impeccably researched, Sandford describes each animal's significant features and how these have adapted to its environment, such as:

- Peppered Moth, which changed color based on the amount of soot in the London air
- miniscule tardigrade, which can withstand radiation, lack of water and oxygen, and temperatures as low as -328°F and as high 304 °F
- and the platypus, which has so many disparate features, from a duck's bill to venomous spur, that scientists originally thought it was a hoax

Maggie Ryan Sandford is a science journalist, researcher, award-winning comedy writer and performer. She has been published in Smithsonian, Slate, National Geographic, Glamour, ComedyCentral.com and appeared regularly on All Things Considered and Freakonomics Tell Me Something You Don't Know.

Rodica Prato's award-winning pen-and-ink work has appeared in numerous magazines, newspapers, books and advertisements, including many of Martha Stewart's books; the official map of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, drawn tree by tree; the Steinway history 88 Keys; a number of Garrison Keillor's covers, and detailed illustrations for The White House Historical Association.
Available products
Book

Published 2019-08-13 by Black Dog & Leventhal

Book

Published 2019-08-13 by Black Dog & Leventhal

Comments

I have met Maggie Ryan Sandford, and I have read her work. And I am confident that she is the ideal woman to explain why dolphins are weird.

Oh man, everyone should be writing science in oversized graphic form, especially about evolution. Everyone loves weird animals. I'm envious.

Chinese (simpl): Beijing Times Chinese