Description
Biologists get to travel a lot. And Christopher Wills is no exception. Here he shares with us some of the extraordinary sights he has seen, exploring each time the evolutionary processess that underlie the beauty and diversity of the wildlife. A dive in the Lembeh Strait of Indonesia reveals marvels such as fire urchins and cuttlefish, leading to a discussion of how the earliest animals arose, and the deep ancestry that all life on Earth shares. A visit to the rainforests of northern Peru intrduces research into the evolutionary engines that drive biodiversity. In an isolated village in Mongolia, a little boy proudly shows off an adopted wolf cub---this is very probably how the domestication of dogs began. And through the hunter-gatherer peoples of the Kalahari, and the bones in the caves of Flores, we gain insights into our own evolutionary story.Illustrated almost entirely with the author's own photographs, The Darwinian Tourist vividly captures the sights and sounds of distant landscapes and their inhabitants. We gaze with him at menacing boxer shrimps, shy parrotfish and raucous hoatzin birds, and listen to the haunting calls of rare lemurs. Viewing the world with Darwinian eyes, recognizing the long history and the interconnectedness of these ecosystems, heightens their wonder---and their fragility. Again and again, we come across biodiversity under threat. A Darwinian perspective deepens understanding and appreciation, but it should also be a call to action. Or we will lose these sights forever.
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In The Darwinian Tourist, biologist Christopher Wills takes us on a series of adventures--exciting in their own right--that demonstrate how ecology and evolution have interacted to create the world we live in. Some of these adventures, like his SCUBA dives in the incredibly diverse Lembeh Strait in Indonesia or his encounter with a wild wolf cub in western Mongolia, might have been experienced by any reasonably intrepid traveller. Others, like his experience of being hammered by a severe earthquake offthe island of Yap while sixty feet down in the ocean, filming manta rays, stand far outside the ordinary. With his own stunning color photographs of the wildlife he discovered on his travels, Wills not only takes us to these far-off places but, more important, draws out the evolutionary storiesbehind the wildlife and shows how our understanding of the living world can be deepened by a Darwinian perspective. In addition, the book offers an extensive and unusual view of human evolution, examining the entire sweep of our evolutionary story as it has taken place throughout the Old World. Thereader comes away with a renewed sense of wonder about the world's astounding diversity, along with a new appreciation of the long evolutionary history that has led to the wonders of the present-day. When we lose a species or an ecosystem, Wills shows us, we also lose many millions of years ofhistory. Published to coincide with the International Year for Biodiversity, The Darwinian Tourist is packed with globe-trotting exploits, brilliant color photography, and eye-opening insights into the evolution of humanity and the natural world.
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