Evolutionary Wars--A Three-Billion-Year Arms Race: The Battle of Species on Land, at Sea, and in the Air [Paperback]

Charles Kingsley Levy (Author), Trudy Nicholson (Illustrator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0716737752 | ISBN-13: 978-0716737759 | Publication Date: October 4, 1999 | Edition: 1

It is an airborne death machine, capable of taking off backward, accelerating in a fraction of a second, making unbanked turns or even a somersault at full speed, and stopping on a dime in mid-air. It's able to lift double its own weight, and is capable of making up to 400 kills a day. No, it's not the Pentagon's newest high-tech helicopter, but a dragonfly.

This winged warrior is just one of the many battle-scarred creatures that fly, swim, and walk through the pages of Evolutionary Wars, an extensively illustrated guide to nature's most ingenious means of attack and defense. Here on the front lines of the war of natural selection, early warning systems, sonar, stealth technology, chemical agents, and deadly weapons clash in the ultimate Darwinian struggle for superiority and survival. Participants include whales that can blast ultrasonic sound intense enough to kill, frogs able to secret lethal toxins that attack the nervous system, lizards who distract predators by shedding a piece of tail that continues to wiggle, and, finally, the ultimate weapons system which no other species has been able to compete with-- the human brain.

From the earliest bacteria and viruses through parasites, plants, and fungi to all creatures great and small, Evolutionary Wars is the story of an arms race that's been raging in the air, on land, and at sea for the last three billion years. Full of fascinating facts and anecdotes, it is perfect reading for natural history buffs, science lovers, and armchair generals.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

YA-This book explores the "extraordinary technologies" species have devised to ensure their survival. This Darwinian struggle has produced strategies, tactics, and weaponry that rival or surpass even the most sophisticated efforts produced by humans. Levy's evocation of military terminology will be familiar to generations raised with television, movies, and video games. Discussions of early warning and navigation systems, echolocation, and "primary target acquisition systems" pepper the text. The author pays special attention to the weapons technology that abounds in nature-claws, talons, teeth, suffocation (constrictors), toxic injection (scorpions), and electricity (eels). He points out offensive and defensive strategies practiced by a range of species, such as the schooling strategies of fish, the cooperative hunting exhibited by wolves and other carnivores, and the recruitment of mercenaries, evidenced by the relationship between thorn acacia trees and ants. Although Levy limits his focus to "familiar organisms," he includes an impressive array of species, from the microbial world to the largest vertebrates, past and present. The exquisite drawings provide the crowning touch.
Dori DeSpain, Herndon Fortnightly Library, Fairfax County, VA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

This compendium of evolutionary adaptations describes the violent nature of natural selection along with illustrative support of evolution. The author emphasizes vertebrates, although a large number of invertebrate structuresAincluding poison-filled jellyfish, corals, and anemones, and the chemical warfare weapons of bombardier beetlesAare also covered. Just the varieties of tongues described is astounding, from the highly specialized form found in woodpeckers to the adhesive tongues of anteaters. Still, Levy makes no mention of the rasping tongues of tigers that can tear flesh off bones, and in describing the guided missile tongue of the chameleon, he misses one of its more inventive mechanical components: the telescopic sliding of the actin and myosin muscle filaments. However, it is impossible to cover everything, and there do not appear to be any obvious errors in content. There is certainly no other book that covers the evolutionary adaptations of so many species in as much detail. Of interest to public libraries, K-12 schools, and introductory biology courses in colleges and universities.ALloyd Davidson, Seeley G. Mudd Lib. for Science & Engineering, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: W. H. Freeman; 1 edition (October 4, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0716737752
• ISBN-13: 978-0716737759
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,977,494 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars fascinating and approachable, quite astounding!, November 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Evolutionary Wars: The Battle of the Species on Land, Sea, and Air (Hardcover)

having been virtually unable to put the book down i can almost feel my I.Q. increasing! (not hard!) The book describes in understandable terms the fascinating realm of survival in the wild, from microscopic organisms to the largest creatures ever to have lived. A good, insightful read crafted masterly. My only negative comment was a few repeats of data, although i think the intention was to remind rather than redundant insertion.All in all a brilliant read!!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Evolutionary Wars, February 23, 2000

By 

neal (Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Evolutionary Wars: The Battle of the Species on Land, Sea, and Air (Hardcover)

The author mixes dry science with enough pizzazz to evoke the kind of wonder a child has for small insects and other creatures featured in the book. I wouldn't say that I couldn't put this book down. I enjoyed it more by reading bits and pieces at my leisure.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Evolution and conflict between species, May 8, 2002

By 

Duwayne Anderson (Saint Helens, Oregon) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Evolutionary Wars: The Battle of the Species on Land, Sea, and Air (Hardcover)

As a kid, I use to love watching insects. The ants impressed me the most, with their organization and ferocity. Sometimes I'd play a game to see how long I could hold my hand on the nest. Caterpillars were another curiosity, with their spines, toxic hairs, and camouflage. And what kid hasn't had the experience of picking up a lizard or snake, only to find it excreting its feces all over the place, to ward off potential predators?

When I saw Levy's book in the bookstore at the University of Washington it caught my attention immediately. Reading it was like going back in time, to the woods behind our house, where my fascination with animals and their modes of attack and self-defense originated. Levy's book is for all the kids (including the ones over 30) who find something intriguing about the microscopic kingdoms hidden under a log, or in a pond, and the ferocious battles that are wage there.

Evolution wouldn't exist without competition. The subtitle in Levy's book elaborates on the content: "A three-billion-year arms race." This is a book about plants and animals, and how they evolved to eat and escape from each other. The ones that are most effective in either evading or executing capture are the ones that propagate their DNA, and the result of this battle of pursuit and escape over the last 2 billion or so years has been some truly amazing life forms, employing some really interesting solutions.

Like any good book, Levy begins at the beginning, describing a little about the competition that existed among the very first forms of life on earth. Throughout the book, Levy describes different dimensions of the conflict. Some dimensions lead to flight, others to eyes, some to incredible speed and agility, others to stealth, and still others to ears of great acuity. Many conflicts resulted in chemical defenses. And some of the most bizarre resulted in camouflage.

A common theme throughout Levy's book is the manner in which evolution, over hundreds of millions of years, has resulted in extraordinarily complicated and refined mechanisms for both defense and attack. The discussion about bats, for example, describes how these small mammals use their acoustic sonar to track flying insects with the sort of accuracy we (who, by comparison, hardly use our ears at all) can scarcely imagine. Reading the section on bats, I had to remind myself that, while they do some incredible things with sound, animals with eyes do equally impressive feats with their eyes. Bats can decipher an incredible amount of information in an unbelievably complex mix of acoustic signals. Animals with eyes, on the other hand, manage to make sense of a bewildering barrage of electromagnetic radiation, and even discern the tiger in the grass. It's just that the difference in the evolutionary paths our ancestors took is so incredible that I cannot imagine doing with my ears what comes naturally to those bats with their ears.

Levy frequently compares the evolutionarily designed characteristics of animals with what we see in modern war machines. The flying bat, for example, hones in on its prey with far greater efficiency and accuracy than any guided missile. The chemical sensors in the noses of many animals are sensitive to an extraordinary degree. Some fish bring down flying insects by spitting water at them. To make the kill, they have to account for relative motion, and parabolic flight of the water drops. Other fish (the Anableps dowi) spend a lot of time near the surface of the water. To search for objects in both the water and the air, they have to account for the difference in the index of refraction in the air, and under water. The solution? They have evolved two eyes: one for seeing above water, and one for seeing below.

Of the many features in this book, some of the best are the many excellent black-and-white line drawings. The book is full of them (they average about every other page). It's also well written, and has a generous index. The subject matter is what captured me, though. If you are someone who finds fascination in the incredible, but possibly little-known facts about animals, especially insects, then I think you will enjoy this book as much as I did. It certainly kept my attention. It's one of those books I had difficulty putting down.