United States
£ GBP
For fans of What If? and New Scientist comes Matt Simon's The Wasp That Brainwashed the Caterpillar, a brilliantly funny and informative look at the stranger side of evolution. Featuring:
- The Zombie ants mind-controlled by a fungus
- Beautiful salamanders that can regenerate any part of their bodies, including their brains
- The mantis shrimp, which fires its club-like appendage so fast that the surrounding water becomes as hot as the surface of the sun
- The Antechinus, whose runaway testosterone levels cause them to have so much sex during their three-week mating season that they bleed internally, go blind, and drop dead...
Featuring quirky illustrations and the signature blend of science smarts and humour that make Matt Simon's Wired column so entertaining, this is an ideal stocking-filler for every popular science aficionado...
Matt Simon is a journalist who writes Wired Science's 'Absurd Creature of the Week' column. He has also edited Wired's 'This Day in Tech blog', which was compiled into the book Mad Science, and writes a second column called 'Fantastically Wrong' that explores the strangest mistakes in folklore and science. He lives in San Francisco.
"A veritable parade of eccentric animal profiles that make you laugh so hard you won't even realize you're learning a thing or two about niche distribution and adaptive camouflage."
– Wired ("Required Science Reading from 2016")
"A bizarre collection of evolution tales [...] the weirder, the better."
– Entertainment Weekly
"A quick, fun read that's [...] heavy on snark [...] The book is packed full of fascinating facts that will both impress and creep out."
– Science News
"An entertaining look at evolution's frightening billion-year arms race [...] Simon's wit, combined with the genuine eccentricity of his subjects, make this a fun and accessible book."
– Publishers Weekly
