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How the zebra got its stripes : and other Darwinian just so stories

Grasset, Leo2016
Books, Manuscripts
Why do giraffes have such long necks? Why are zebras striped? Why are buffalo herds broadly democratic while elephants prefer dictatorships? What explains the architectural brilliance of the termite mound or the complications of the hyena's sex life? And why have honey-badgers evolved to be one of nature's most efficient agents of mass destruction? Deploying the latest scientific research and his own extensive observations on the African savannah, Leo Grasset gives some answers to these and many other intriguing questions. Having shown that natural phenomena are rarely simple and that often they get more complex the more you look at them, he brings to bear a mix of evolutionary biology and lateral thinking to explain the mysteries of animal behaviour in terms that are simple but never simplifying.
Main title:
How the zebra got its stripes : and other Darwinian just so stories / Leo Grasset ; translated by Barbara Mellor.
Imprint:
London : Profile Books, 2016.London : Profile Books, 2016.
Collation:
154 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (black and white, and colour) ; 21 cm
Notes:
Translated from the French.Includes index.
ISBN:
9781781256282 (hbk)
Dewey class:
591.748
Language:
EnglishFrench
BRN:
1634003
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