Mega: The Most Enormous Animals Ever
The term mega-fauna describes animals the size of a sheep or larger, which is more diminutive than imagined, but the focus in this clever non-fiction book really is on the largest extinct, and largest still surviving, of various groups, from mammals (elephants, monkeys, ungulates and others), to birds, reptiles, fish and even molluscs.
As a work of non-fiction, there isn't a straight narrative here, but the author’s ability to condense the scientific facts about a huge range of animals, not just into a digestible format, but into one which made the animals’ distinctive traits come into their own as ecological super-powers is incredibly impressive. I’ll mention just two poo-related facts which astonished me (and the author knows his audience, there are a lot of poo facts!). Did you know that sperm whales feed in the ocean depths, but poo close to the surface, thus redistributing nutrients across the ocean? Or conversely, that some rays and sharks eat a lot of carbon-rich surface-level plankton, and when the carbon is excreted in their poo, it sinks to the ocean floor, helping with carbon capture? There will be animals here which you've never heard of, but will never forget!
Highly recommended, this is one of the most magnificent books ever to have come into our house - the production values are sumptuous, the illustrations are captivating, and the dust jacket cleverly opens out as a double-sided poster. This reviewer has come to expect nothing less from Nosy Crow, but it’s still worth emphasising what a really gorgeous book this is: something to be treasured.
