Katrina van Grouw - Böcker

A scientifically robust and greatly expanded new version of Katrina van Grouw’s landmark book on bird anatomySince it was first published in 2013, The Unfeathered Bird has established itself as a favourite among bird lovers and dinosaur enthusiasts everywhere. Katrina van Grouw has reimagined this classic work, adding more than 300 stunning illustrations and extensive new text, exploring the relationships between birds, and their origins and position in the dinosaur lineage. Each exquisite anatomical drawing in this splendid large-format book is based on direct research and observation and a lifetime of accumulated knowledge. Many show articulated skeletons of animals engaged in natural behaviour: a seriema dispatching a snake, hovering hummingbirds, singing songbirds, or Deinonychus mantling a victim! A unique, beautifully presented, and scientifically rigorous exploration of bird evolution and diversification after the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs, A New Unfeathered Bird is a celebration of all birds, across all time.A sumptuous blend of art and scienceAround 600 illustrationsNew layout and design by the authorEntirely new and substantially expanded textUp-to-date researchCombines accessible scientific discussion with powerfully evocative nature writingIncludes a section on the genesis and creation of the book

A lavishly illustrated look at how evolution plays out in selective breedingUnnatural Selection is a stunningly illustrated book about selective breeding—the ongoing transformation of animals at the hand of man. More important, it's a book about selective breeding on a far, far grander scale—a scale that encompasses all life on Earth. We'd call it evolution.A unique fusion of art, science, and history, this book is intended as a tribute to what Charles Darwin might have achieved had he possessed that elusive missing piece to the evolutionary puzzle—the knowledge of how individual traits are passed from one generation to the next. With the benefit of a century and a half of hindsight, Katrina van Grouw explains evolution by building on the analogy that Darwin himself used—comparing the selective breeding process with natural selection in the wild, and, like Darwin, featuring a multitude of fascinating examples.This is more than just a book about pets and livestock, however. The revelation of Unnatural Selection is that identical traits can occur in all animals, wild and domesticated, and both are governed by the same evolutionary principles. As van Grouw shows, animals are plastic things, constantly changing. In wild animals, the changes are usually too slow to see—species appear to stay the same. When it comes to domesticated animals, however, change happens fast, making them the perfect model of evolution in action.Featuring more than four hundred breathtaking illustrations of living animals, skeletons, and historical specimens, Unnatural Selection will be enjoyed by anyone with an interest in natural history and the history of evolutionary thinking.