Skip to main content

I, Mammal - Liam Drew *****

It's rare that a straightforward biology book (with a fair amount of palaeontology thrown in) really grabs my attention, but this one did. Liam Drew really piles in the surprising facts (often surprising to him too) and draws us a wonderful picture of the various aspects of mammals that make them different from other animals. 

 More on this in a moment, but I ought to mention the introduction, as you have to get past it to get to the rest, and it might put you off. I'm not sure why many books have an introduction - they often just get in the way of the writing, and this one seemed to go on for ever. So bear with it before you get to the good stuff, starting with the strange puzzle of why some mammals have external testes.

 It seems bizarre to have such an important thing for passing on the genes so precariously posed - and it's not that they have to be, as it's not the case with all mammals. Drew mixes his own attempts to think through this intriguing issue with the historical debates over it, leading up to the latest thinking.

 This is the broad approach Drew tends to take in most of the chapters, whether we're looking at the jaw bone (apparently the most distinctive aspect of mammals), the senses, being warm blooded (but we're not allowed to call it that), hairiness or lactation. That last item had one of the most striking statistics amongst the 'Wow!' facts Drew gives us - that one species of whale when suckling young produces about a quarter of a tonne of milk a day.

 Another delightful feature that recurs through the book is the duck billed platypus. After diving into this weird and wonderful creature in some detail early on, they keep cropping as their odd position on the mammalian family tree makes them an inevitable recurring reference point. And the more you read about the platypus, the more you love it.

 Only two things were less than perfect. A couple of chapters fell into the Feynman Trap by  spending too much time naming things and losing steam a little on the narrative, but these weren't too much of an issue. The other problem for me is a personal one. Drew uses his children and details of family life, particularly of the premature birth of his first child, far too much for me. I know some people (and publishers) love all these personal details, but I found it mildly nauseating - however, I'm sure that's just me.

 Overall, this is a brilliant book, particularly if, like me, you know relatively little of biology or what makes mammals, erm, mammals. It's light enough to be enjoyable but detailed enough to satisfy the most fact-driven reader. Recommended.

Hardback:  
Kindle:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you

Review by Brian Clegg

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Target Earth – Govert Schilling *****

I was biased in favour of this great little book even before I started to read it, simply because it’s so short. I’m sure that a lot of people who buy popular science books just want an overview and taster of a subject that’s brand new to them – and that’s likely to work best if the author keeps it short and to the point. Of course, you may want to dig deeper in areas that really interest you, but that’s what Google is for. That basic principle aside, I’m still in awe at how much substance Govert Schilling has managed to cram into this tiny book. It’s essentially about all the things (natural things, I mean, not UFOs or space junk) that can end up on Earth after coming down from outer space. That ranges from the microscopically small particles of cosmic dust that accumulate in our gutters, all the way up to the ten kilometre wide asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. Between these extremes are two topics that we’ve reviewed entire books about recently: meteorites ( The Meteorite Hunt...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire - Henry Gee ****

In his last book, Henry Gee impressed with his A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth - this time he zooms in on one very specific aspect of life on Earth - humans - and gives us not just a history, but a prediction of the future - our extinction. The book starts with an entertaining prologue, to an extent bemoaning our obsession with dinosaurs, a story that leads, inexorably towards extinction. This is a fate, Gee points out, that will occur for every species, including our own. We then cover three potential stages of the rise and fall of humanity (the book's title is purposely modelled on Gibbon) - Rise, Fall and Escape. Gee's speciality is palaeontology and in the first section he takes us back to explore as much as we can know from the extremely patchy fossil record of the origins of the human family, the genus Homo and the eventual dominance of Homo sapiens , pushing out any remaining members of other closely related species. As we move onto the Fall section, Gee gives ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Language of Mathematics - Raúl Rojas ***

One of the biggest developments in the history of maths was moving from describing relationships and functions with words to using symbols. This interesting little book traces the origins of a whole range of symbols from those familiar to all, to the more obscure squiggles used in logic and elsewhere. On the whole Raúl Rojas does a good job of filling in some historical detail, if in what is generally a fairly dry fashion. We get to trace what was often a bumpy path as different symbols were employed (particularly, for example, for division and multiplication, where several still remain in use), but usually, gradually, standards were adopted. This feels better as a reference, to dip into if you want to find out about a specific symbol, rather than an interesting end to end read. Rojas tells us the sections are designed to be read in any order, which means that there is some overlap of text - it feels more like a collection of short essays or blog posts that he couldn't be bothered ...
Post a Comment
Read more