Why write about eggs?
Like many, I have always loved those big epic tales, based on science, that chart the evolution of animals – the Cambrian Explosion, fish moving onto the land, early amphibians and reptiles, the demise of dinosaurs and the rise of mammals… Gould, Dawkins, Attenborough did it so well, and I loved this kind of information when I was starting out in zoology. I guess I was always looking for an opportunity to tell my own version of this… and that’s where the eggs idea comes into it.
Eggs came to me in quite a weird way. About six years ago, Patricia Brennan (of duck vagina fame) and I made a virtual reality app where users could travel through a 3D model of a duck vagina. It was a fun, interactive way to communicate how natural selection acts on internal structures, such as the oviduct (the egg tube). It was while setting up the cameras and the lighting in the 3D digital model of this oviduct that I thought… “what an interesting place to tell a story.”
I could see, in that moment, that the egg has gone on its own evolutionary journey throughout the history of animals, and that this story hadn’t really been told in any mainstream way before. I pitched the idea to Elliott & Thompson (publishers) and they really liked it. So off I went…
Why have eggs been so successful?
For me, two reasons. The egg is a vessel to grow an organism with new combinations of genes that (in most cases) differ from both of their parents. When animals produce lots of eggs, they pump out lots of genetic variations which are, in turn, unthinkingly cut, whittled and shaped by natural selection – in some cases, more ‘successfully’ than rival animal groups who, for instance, may simply adopt to ‘clone’ themselves. Cloning is an effective method that sees organisms reproduce quickly, but (as we see in agriculture sometimes) ‘monocultures’ have a habit of being picked apart, sometimes in one fell swoop, by parasites, for instance. Eggs – these familiar ‘venues’ for genetic mixing – don’t succumb quite so easily, the theory goes.
But eggs, provided they can survive the ravages of their environment and (on land) a hostile, dry atmosphere, are also vessels for sending genes forwards in time. Many animals ‘use’ eggs to get through cold winters or other periods when food becomes scarce. So, in a sense, they are also naturally evolved survival structures.
You describe a whole range of different egg types over the existence of life on Earth. What do you think might be a future development of eggs?
Researching the book, I found it really interesting how global events, prehistoric periods of climate change for instance, seemed to influence egg evolution. How, at the end of the Carboniferous, for example, when the climate became generally drier, insects and early reptiles appeared to ‘hit upon’ similar shelled eggs at roughly similar times, that then contributed to their continental take-over in subsequent periods.
Could eggs be changing and adapting now, because of our changing climate? Yes, undoubtedly so. I outline in the book, how important museum collections will be in future, to monitor how eggs adapt and change in the coming decades, as our climate warms. There will be winners, of course – some spiders now lay two clutches of eggs a year rather than one, for instance. But there will be losers. Some turtle species, for instance, have been hit hard in recent years, not from high temperatures, but because of unusually heavy, repeated storms that destroy their nesting beaches.
What’s next for you?
This was a really intensive book to research, involving years of very focused, disciplined reading so… I am taking a break to read more widely again before I hit upon another zoological topic that inspires me as much as Infinite Life. This is the first time I have had a break in writing adult non-fiction for more than ten years!
I do, however, have plenty of children’s books coming down the line, covering evolution, megafauna, bird diversity and classification, insect conservation and more. So, at the moment, I am enjoying helping these colourful books take shape.
What’s exciting you at the moment?
Finally, the weather is improving so I am trying to improve my birdsong identification skills before the summer truly kicks in and the garden goes quiet. Warblers, which all sound quite alike (sorry, ornithologists) are my big focus, so I’ve started using Cornell’s ‘MERLIN’ app on my phone to help me work out which is which. My plan: I will be able to tell Garden Warblers from Blackcaps with greater than chance results, if it kills me!
Interview by Brian Clegg - See all of Brian's online articles or subscribe to a digest free here
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