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- Hardcover: 352 pages ;
Dimensions (in inches): 1.37 x 9.34 x 6.48
- Publisher: Ecco; ; (January
7, 2003)
- ISBN: 0060197447
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From flying hot-blooded squirrels and diminutive kinglets to
sleeping black bears and torpid turtles to frozen insects and
frogs, the animal kingdom relies on staggering evolutionary
innovations to survive winter.
Unlike their
human counterparts, who alter the environment to accommodate
physicallimitations, most animals are adapted to an amazing
range of conditions. In Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal
Survival, biologist, illustrator, and award-winning author Bernd
Heinrich explores his local woods, where he delights in the
seemingly infinite feats of animal inventiveness he discovers
there.
Because winter drastically affects
the most elemental component of all life -- water -- radical
changes in a creature's physiology and behavior must take place
to match the demands of the environment.
Some creatures survive by developing
antifreeze; others must remain in constant motion to maintain
their high body temperatures.
Even if animals can avoid freezing
to death, they must still manage to find food in a time of
scarcity, or store it from a time of plenty.
Beautifully illustrated throughout
with the author's delicate drawings and infused by his
inexhaustible enchantment with nature, Winter World: The
Ingenuity of Animal Survival awakens the wonders and
mysteries by which nature sustains herself through winter's
harsh, cruel exigencies.
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