Leon – Hoopoe – A blog by nhbs

Book review – The Savage Landscape: How We Made the Wilderness

***** Boiling over with thought-provoking observations

In The Savage Landscape, writer Cal Flyn travels to wild areas around the world and thoughtfully examines how our efforts to conserve the wild are shot through with tensions and contradictions. By blending it with equal parts travel reportage and nature writing, she helps the reader to digest what is frequently discomfiting and confrontational subject matter.

Flyn blew me away with her previous book, Islands of Abandonment, in which she roamed areas abandoned by humans. She has become worried that it could be misread as endorsing the idea that removing humans from landscapes is a good thing, a “seductive mode of misanthropic thinking [that] has oozed through the environmental movement for decades” (p. 8). Here she thus reexamines the concept of wilderness. Where Islands of Abandonment had an often otherworldly quality by examining landscapes that, by definition, very few people have seen, The Savage Landscape takes the inverse approach and steps with two feet into the very human mess that results when different ideologies clash.

Readers who wish to be spellbound again need not worry, though: there are excursions here into unforgettable landscapes, and her poetic writing frequently gave me goosebumps. She examines wilderness as site of spiritual revelation when visiting Mount Sinai. This might well be its oldest function as hermits, shamans, and other truth-seekers have retreated here since time immemorial in search of “an uncluttered connection with the divine” (p. 37). Most powerful is her visit to an erupting volcano in Iceland to experience first-hand how people go into the wild seeking the sublime. Against her better judgment trekking all the way to the erupting crater, she is confronted with a “storm-lashed ocean trapped in a tiny cup. […] it was like a god; after that first glimpse I found I could not look it in the face in all its glory, its terrifying beauty” (p. 182).

However, Flyn has a more important mission this time around. She fearlessly confronts the contradictions inherent in modern nature conservation. Three examples will have to suffice.

First is the myth of pristine nature. Flyn mentions the post-colonial critics who argue that there is no true wilderness anymore: “there is only land occupied by misunderstood and disregarded peoples; land that creates an *impression* of untouched nature, the *perception* of wilderness” (p. 7). To this she adds that virtually everywhere, land has been managed, modified, or inhabited: “one man’s wilderness has almost invariably turned out to be another man’s garden” (p. 7).

This logically leads to the second example: the tension between conservation and social justice. National parks from the get-go involved the eviction of native people from their ancestral lands. This still happens, as Flyn witnesses when she meets the Batwa, the no-longer-forest people in Uganda. A lot of wilderness protection has morphed into fortress conservation: a hard-line, militant form of environmental defence that is shot through with racism. This is easily one of the more uncomfortable topics, as it is hard to square the brutalities we inflict on each other with the perceived morality driving environmental conservation. At its core, this is a conflict between how we value the lives of humans versus those of other animals. Asks Flyn: “When push comes to shove, who gets elbowed off the ark?” (p. 236).

The third example is that conservation, for all its talk of letting nature take its course, is frequently a hands-on affair. When visiting Transylvania, she sees firsthand the conflict between humans and large predators, and the lethal and non-lethal methods used to manage it. Trophy hunting similarly involves active management, sacrificing a few to finance the greater good. Even rewilding often involves active intervention. Though she is sympathetic to rewilding, she cautions that: “In sculpting the landscape into a vision of what we call ‘wild’ we risk adding only one more layer of artifice” (p. 374). Thus her challenge to rewilders: “What do we risk through interference, and what might we gain from restraint?” (p. 374).

There is a thoughtfulness and open-mindedness that underlies much of her writing. She has witnessed unsettling things and met people she does not always agree with. However, she will hear them out before giving in to emotional responses. Similarly, she will not tell her readers what to think, instead showing how many topics are more complicated than they first appear. While she is ill at ease with trophy hunting, she cannot deny it succeeds in protecting species and understands its utilitarian economics. Plus, where governments cannot or will not support conservation, game parks are often the only thing standing between wildlife and powerful poaching cartels. A second example is the role of wilderness as sacred land. Though she admits to being constrained by her own scientific training, she earnestly explores the value of taboos and superstitions in wildlife protection when visiting Nepal: “The terror of wrathful gods, of course, being far more daunting than any fence could ever be” (p. 336).

I was pleased to see she even considers the corrosive role of capitalism in all this, writing how uncharted wilderness, here the deep sea, invites exploration, so often a prelude to exploitation. Much to the distress of marine biologists, mining companies want to extract the polymetallic nodules that litter the seabed, sponsoring the very expeditions that describe these ecosystems. This is nothing short of “corporate espionage against the natural world: trusted insiders, gathering data, […] feeding sensitive information back to its greatest adversaries” (p. 309). That does not mean that ‘science is evil’, but to view it as “a moral force is to misunderstand it entirely” (p. 313). She sharply observes that it is no coincidence that the first national parks were established in hard-to-access areas, the only inhabitants being “those who had values other than capitalistic gain” (p. 312). What this tells me is that the problem is not the presence of people on the land, but the presence of *certain* people on the land, except that they are not the ones being evicted. As with climate change, the great travesty of conservation is that those who contributed the least to today’s problems pay the highest price.

There is much more I could say about The Savage Landscape, and there is not a chapter here that does not upend comfortably held assumptions and beliefs. This is a book that boils over with thought-provoking observations, and one that excels at clarifying why these provocations are urgently needed. Rather than cynical polemic, Flyn relies on the power of poetic language to deliver the message, and some of it resonated long after I finished reading.

Book review – The Story of Birds: An Evolutionary History of the Dinosaurs That Live Among Us

***** Another captivatingly told chapter of life’s evolutionary history

After writing two bestsellers on the evolution of dinosaurs and mammals, palaeontologist Steve Brusatte here provides the missing piece of the puzzle by turning to the evolution of birds. You might even ask why this book was not immediately written after The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs. How so? If this book has one take-home message, it is that birds are, quite literally, dinosaurs. The Story of Birds sees Brusatte, by now comfortable in his science communication skills, combining captivating episodes of evolution with accessible explanations, while giving plenty of attention to the people behind the findings.

Until I started this book, I had a large gap in my understanding of bird evolution. Sure, I was familiar with the ongoing discussion as to which group of theropod dinosaurs was the ancestor of birds. I had admired first-hand the famous Berlin specimen of Archaeopteryx, a genus that has become, through sheer history, “a conceptual anchor point for discussing bird origins” (p. 91). And I knew that this was followed by something-something-evolution and, oh look, now we have more than ten thousand bird species. But what happened in between?

To tell the story of birds, Brusatte takes a two-pronged approach. The first few chapters discuss how certain dinosaurs evolved the anatomical, physiological, and behavioural features that we all associate with birds: feathers, wings, beaks, endothermy, flight, song, etc. The remainder of the book then examines how birds evolved and diversified to become the creatures we recognise today. This involves a cast of increasingly bird-like creatures, some of which are on the direct line to modern birds, others of which are sister groups that left no descendants. It also involves all sorts of delightful evolutionary experiments, notably the repeated loss of flight leading to all sorts of giant land birds.

I was impressed with how Brusatte casually introduces important concepts in ecology and evolutionary biology. Take exaptation; or, how evolutionary innovations, such as feathers, often come about by repurposing existing structures. Or take the ecological niche: how modern birds diversified extremely rapidly after the extinction of the (non-avian) dinosaurs into now-vacant positions in ecosystems, and since then have been tinkering around the edges. Another concept is biogeography, and how it has been shaped by plate tectonics. The “tectonic handshake” (p. 285) between North and South America when the Panama Isthmus formed some 2.7 million years (Ma) ago led to the extinction of terror birds, while the island corridor forming close to Australia some 27 Ma ago blessed the world with bird song as passerines started migrating around the globe. And then there is the incredible story of ratites and how DNA research completely overturned long-held ideas about their evolution. I will leave that one for readers to explore.

What keeps these forays into biological concepts accessible to a wider readership are Brusatte’s sometimes amusing analogies. He clarifies that saying that birds are dinosaurs is not some sort of “rhetorical sleight of hand—academic scientists harping on a technicality” (p. 7). Species classification is about ancestry: “Family trees are like a set of nested Russian dolls—groups within groups” (p. 33). The fact that birds look so different is irrelevant: “Scientific classification follows the same rules as the mafia: If you’re born into the family, you can’t get out” (p. 33). When explaining how many bird traits did not evolve for the purpose of flight, another nice analogy follows: “The Wright brothers, after all, did not invent the wheel or the propeller. But they put them together and got them working in a new way—as an airplane” (p. 38).

Brusatte has lost none of his humility, something already on display in his previous two books. Thus, he is not shy to admit where his work stands on the shoulders of giants and explicitly acknowledges where he has collaborated with specialists on subjects he is not an expert on, such as flight and biomechanics. More broadly, there is a sense of professional humility. There are competing scenarios for how bird flight began. The problem is that we only have Archaeopteryx to draw on. “I have learned to be comfortable with the uncertainty: We can’t be totally sure how the bird flight stroke began” (p. 101). Similarly, current consensus favours the idea that modern birds evolved from waterbirds, with Vegavis and Asteriornis key fossils, but Brusatte is quick to add that “again we must be humble in the face of the fossil record. These are simply two species, the only ones currently known from decent skeletons” (p. 135). Another aspect of his writing that makes a return here, closely allied to this attitude of humility, is his respectful portrayal of other people. He goes beyond the journalistic trope of describing their appearance and dress, exploring what motivates and interests them. It helps that, as a scientist, he understands their work intimately. Additionally, he will read up on biographical sketches of past figures. And even where he disagrees with others, he will recognise their other achievements.

Two final features of the book I want to call out are the reference section and the illustrations. As in the previous two books, rather than a simple reference list, you get a chatty 53-page literature review in which Brusatte expands on his thinking processes, gives reading recommendations, and adds further detail. This is something few other authors do, and I continue to enjoy it. No fewer than four illustrators are credited. As before, the dust jacket has been drawn by Andrew Davidson, so this trilogy looks great on your bookshelves. I am not sure that Todd Marshall has actually contributed anything to the UK version. In an Instagram post, Brusatte mentioned having to call on Cordula Mark Venters at the last minute, who provides equally lovely chapter openings and species montages. The useful infographics are again by Sarah Shelley. Finally, Daniel Field is credited with several galleries of bird photos. Overall, the black-and-white reproduction of all photos in this book is middling, and given that it is already topping bestseller lists, some colour plates would not have been out of place.

The praise and accolades that this book rapidly gathered towards its release have been well-deserved. If you read his previous books, picking this one up is a no-brainer; if you have not, you are missing out! Brusatte has written another phenomenally interesting work of popular science. Confidently told while always deferring to the provisional nature of palaeontological knowledge, and with plenty of attention to the people behind the research, this is scientific storytelling at its best.

Book review: The Princeton Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs

The Princeton Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs is a comprehensive three-volume resource for anyone who is fascinated by dinosaurs. Packed with engaging dinosaur facts and original, full-colour reconstructions, drawings, and graphics, this one-of-a-kind encyclopedia strikes a perfect balance between depth and accessibility – detailed enough to captivate professionals yet clear and exciting enough for beginners eager to dive into the amazing lost world of the dinosaurs. The three volumes are Theropods, Sauropods, and Ornithischians. Organised for easy reference, these books are perfect for casual browsing or in-depth study. Together, this encyclopedia invites dinosaur lovers of all ages to walk among the wondrous beasts of the Mesozoic era.

***** The most comprehensive popular dinosaur encyclopaedia I have yet encountered

This is the most comprehensive popular dinosaur encyclopaedia I have yet encountered, describing well over 1100 species and covering mountains of primary literature. Combining a pleasingly uncluttered visual presentation with entries that strike a fine balance between the accessible and the scholarly, this is a reference I can see myself returning to regularly for a pithy overview of almost every dinosaur under the sun. Interestingly, the authors are new to me, and I could find little information about them online. Jones, a science writer and educator, is a self-professed “lifelong dinosaur enthusiast” (p. 9/10). Viola is a chemist who, for the last decade, has dedicated his spare time to illustrating over 2500 extinct animals on DeviantArt.

This set consists of three A4 hardbacks, totalling around 6 kg and over 1300 pages worth of dinosaurs. They are standalone volumes that can be read in no particular order. Each opens with the same eight pages (preface, FAQ, glossary, timeline, deep time, palaeogeography, instructions on usage), which is mercifully brief and minimises repetition between the different books. Each book is then divided into 14 to 21 sections to different families, opening with a detailed family tree and a one-page introduction to the various hypotheses regarding internal relationships and overall organisation of each family. Jones is upfront about the fact that there is no universal agreement amongst palaeontologists on these matters, and has here tried to compile different versions and different interpretations. None of this is presented, nor intended to be taken, as gospel. Nevertheless, I think they admirably condense complex information without dumbing it down.

The bulk of the encyclopaedia is the species profiles, and I think this is where the books shine. Most profiles take up a full page. They show Viola’s life reconstruction and basic stats across the top third, the presentation borrowing heavily from the 2020 Dinosaur Facts and Figures books, except using greyscale iconography in standardised positions. It makes for a far cleaner and less cluttered presentation. The bottom-third shows an indented classification list, two maps of fossil localities (one modern, one palaeo, which is a nifty feature), and a small skeletal diagram. This combines all the described specimens to indicate how much of the skeleton we have found. Jones adds that these diagrams are not intended to be anatomically exact; the work of Paul and others remains unsurpassed in that respect.

These infographics sandwich the text. Jones has set himself the challenge of explicitly answering three questions in each profile. 1) What makes each species unique? 2) How are species related to each other? 3) How many fossils do we have of each dinosaur? As he explains, all are surprisingly tricky to answer because 1) You have to trawl through “mountains of highly technical, ultradetailed anatomical descriptions” (p. 9/10); 2) there is virtually no species for which there is universal agreement about relationships, and a lot of ink is spilt on discussing different viewpoints and scenarios and how they have shifted over time; 3) there are large gaps in our knowledge. Many papers, especially older ones, do not illustrate or describe all bones. Elsewhere, information technically exists, but it can be decades before a professional has the time and resources to prepare and describe.

Finally, each volume ends with lists of nomina dubia, informally named species, and tables of museum specimens. Bibliographies are available online and consist of three PDF files spanning 446 pages, though they are double-spaced and include duplicates. They show Jones has consulted a vast body of mostly journal papers (in multiple languages), books, conference abstracts, and PhD theses up to May 2025, by my reckoning.

So much for the description; what of my opinion? Simply put, I think this is an awesome beast. Many popular encyclopaedias claim to be the ultimate one, but this has to be the most exhaustive one, covering well over 1100 species, including many for which we have only bone fragments. This might divide readers, and Paul’s decision to limit his field guide to the ~800 better-known might be considered more meaningful. My complaint was that his book left my curiosity about many others unsatisfied, so Jones delivers on this front.

The species profiles neatly address all three questions in a short narrative that retains an impressive amount of nuance and circumspection about how firm or questionable certain findings are. However, what about authority and reliability, given that Jones is not a professional palaeontologist? Comparisons with more technical encyclopedias show him giving fair summaries. This is not surprising, as he references these books and draws on the same primary literature. Similarly, his summaries compare favourably to recent works on specific groups that I have reviewed, though he mostly cites primary literature rather than popular books.

Probably the most divisive aspect of the books is Viola’s reconstructions, specifically his decision to make a full life reconstruction of *every*, *single*, *species*, no matter how fragmentary and incomplete their remains. Paul has a strict policy in that regard, only reconstructing those species where he is convinced that further discoveries will not significantly alter our understanding. Though Jones is upfront about their approach in the introduction and uses several indicators in each profile, I worry that—such is the power of imagery—a casual perusal of these books might leave you with the impression that we know exactly what all these animals looked like. Keep in mind that many of the life reconstructions here range from fairly to very speculative.

Though I noticed a few editorial errors beyond the occasional typos, I thought there were surprisingly few given the scale of this project. Recent developments (e.g. Nanotyrannus) have outpaced the book, but to blame it for that is to misunderstand the time frames involved in completing a large book project.

Finally, who is the intended audience? For young readers, the numerous discussions about phylogenetics and group membership might be too abstruse, but I think that for the large audience of adult dinosaur enthusiasts, this book scratches a serious itch. The combination of an uncluttered visual presentation, the compact but informative descriptions, and the extensive coverage that leaves no museum drawer unopened makes this the most comprehensive popular dinosaur encyclopaedia currently on the market. I really enjoyed Jones’s potted descriptions and can see myself returning to these books in the future to get me started on any one species, especially as he references an impressive amount of literature.

Book review – In Search of Sea Dragons: A Fossil Hunter’s Odyssey

***** An engrossing tale of fossils and obsession

In In Search of Sea Dragons, civil engineer and fossil hunter Matthew Myerscough vividly tells his personal tale of hunting for fossils on the more remote beaches of Wales and South West England, as hobby transforms into obsession.

The author’s pivot from mountaineering to fossil collecting was rather traumatic. After surviving being buried alive by an avalanche on Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) in Wales, he is psychologically scarred and can no longer find solace in the mountains: “I felt like I had lost my sanctuary” (p. 34). Instead, he turns to the seashore to go fossil hunting. The memoir that follows documents a years-long personal journey from novice to experienced collector. Though he remains vague on the dates, a few touchstones (the avalanche’s tenth anniversary in 2024, storm Eunice, which happened in 2022) place this story in the decade after 2014. As he scours beaches in South Wales, Somerset, and North Yorkshire, and his skills and obsession grow, the stakes keep being raised. Soon, nothing less than his very own complete ichthyosaur skeleton will do.

I found Myerscough’s descriptions of the landscapes and rock formations particularly vivid, perhaps because I live in South Devon, only an hour’s drive away from some of these beaches, and am familiar with the local scenery. Whatever it may be, his writing transported me there, standing under wide open skies on the beach, sharing in his excitement, and vicariously enjoying some adventuring of my own. This literal situation of the reader is aided by three colour plate sections with photos of some of his remarkable discoveries, while maps show the different beaches where he made key finds (though the greyscale reproduction is poor in places).

With time, he finds some exceptional and rare fossils, including parts of a rhomaleosaur (an early pliosaurid), an articulated plesiosaur flipper (which are rarer still than those of ichthyosaurs), and substantial parts of an ichthyosaur skeleton. Though snippets about the biology of these extinct marine reptiles crop up here and there, they are not the focus of this book. Neither is this a practical guide to fossil hunting, though some tips, codes of conduct, and hard-won experience are sprinkled throughout.

In Search of Sea Dragons is foremost a memoir, and it is as much an internal as an external odyssey. Not that I wish to psycho-analyse the author, but he wears his heart on his sleeve and prominently writes about his feelings and emotions. Perhaps unintentionally, the book provides a revealing glimpse of the darker side of becoming obsessed with one’s hobby. Below, I will elaborate on the aspects that led me to this conclusion, to which I add that this is not intended as a personal judgement of Myerscough’s character.

The author is remarkably candid about the feelings he is working through and the new ones he encounters. While he continues to be plagued by guilt and insecurity over the avalanche, the beach becomes a new sanctuary: a place to unwind, release stress, slow down, and commune with nature. And yet, you do not even have to read between the lines to notice it brings with it a whole new suite of anxieties. Though there is the excitement of finding new fossils and forging new friendships, there is also self-doubt (“Was this really how I wanted to spend my precious time”, p. 55) and jealousy at others’ fossil discoveries (“This had happened on my turf and I felt sick with envy thinking about this missed opportunity”, p. 53). As his skills increase and his spectacular finds win him the admiration of other fossil hunters, there is an undercurrent of dissatisfaction that surfaces most clearly towards the end. Despite finally finding large parts of an articulated ichthyosaur skeleton, possibly preserving stomach contents and skin fragments (!), he writes that “None of it was quite what I had hoped for” (p. 174).

His hobby turning into an obsession is something he admits to himself. A large boulder stuffed with plesiosaur bones “began my obsession with the huge bone blocks, the sort that most people would assume impossible to move” (p. 136). In one passage that is as comical as it is absurd, he almost turns into Gollum as he entertains the idea of shouting and hurling objects at two approaching fossil hunters to distract them from his “treasure” (p. 131): a promising boulder he has just discovered. As the fossils pile up faster than his friend Mike can prepare them, first the sheds and then the house start filling up with rocks. You have to wonder, as a visiting plumber seems to do, what his partner makes of this. She is notably absent after the first few chapters and, clearly, this is a hobby they do not share.

What really raised my eyebrows is his continued risk-taking behaviour. Despite his earlier brush with death, he purposefully ventures out on wet and wintry days, seeking out remote beaches where other people are as absent as is mobile phone coverage. When rooting around in a distant cove in the predawn darkness one morning, trying to relocate a particular rock, he worries about having an accident: “was my obsession with these bones leading me to take unnecessary risks?” (p. 134). And there are accidents, with slips and falls resulting in bruised legs and broken ribs. “Perhaps I am foolish or just stubborn, but I love what I do and I won’t stop, despite these risks” (p. 117). The most extreme example of this is the chapter where, together with another experienced local fossil hunter, he abseils from the cliffs at Whitby (famous for both Bram Stoker’s Dracula *and* fossils). Using rotten ropes and rickety steps left behind by fishermen, they descend hundreds of feet onto angular, car-sized boulders. Any slip here would be lethal. Though he finds something truly spectacular, the chapter opens with a sternly worded warning about the extremely dangerous setting, even for experienced fossil hunters. He advises against going here, has kept the location anonymous, and especially warns against using ropes to descend cliff faces… to then promptly do so himself.

I will be honest that I felt a certain sense of relief for him when reaching the epilogue, where we now find the author living in Cumbria, spending far less time collecting fossils. The way this tale was headed, death, injury, or the disintegration of his relationship under the literal weight of fossils only seemed a matter of time. The honest and open exposition of his inner odyssey, together with his vivid descriptions of landscapes, make for an engrossing memoir. I devoured the book in a few sittings and expect that it will strongly appeal to fellow fossil hunters and, more broadly, to readers interested in palaeontological exploration.

Book review: The Secret Lives of Dinosaurs

***** Beautifully presented

Back in 2021, palaeontologist Dean Lomax impressed me with Locked in Time, a popular science book that looked at the behaviour of extinct animals as revealed by a selection of extraordinary fossils. Showing that there is more to be said on the topic, he now returns with The Secret Lives of Dinosaurs, which features another tranche of remarkable fossils. More than just a sequel, this book improves on its predecessor in several respects.

Since the publication of Locked in Time, there have been several other popular books on trace fossils and the behaviour of extinct animals. I reviewed Michael J. Benton’s introductory guide Dinosaur Behavior and David Hone’s excellent Uncovering Dinosaur Behavior, while Jean Le Loeuff’s What Did Dinosaurs Think About? is on my radar. Anthony J. Martin, whose 2014 book on trace fossils, Dinosaurs Without Bones, merits mention in this context, returned in 2023 with Life Sculpted to look at trace fossils of bioerosion. Collectively, these books show what else you can do with this topic, so I was curious to see what tack Lomax would take this time.

Undeniably, The Secret Lives of Dinosaurs has all the appearances of being Locked in Time II. It follows the same formula: previously, we got 50 case studies under five subject headings; now we get another 49 case studies under eleven headings. Furthermore, in his introduction, Lomax adds that “You might even consider this a sort of sequel” (p. 1). Finally, when I interviewed Lomax back in 2021, he mentioned originally wanting to discuss 100 fossils but having to cut his selection in half. One fossil he regretted having to omit was the arthropod Aquilonifer spinosus, nicknamed the kite runner, that was found with its offspring tethered to its body by long filaments. That fossil here appears in chapter 3 as “Tethered Toddlers”. However, calling this book a mere sequel would be doing it a disservice: this is more than a compilation of the leftovers that missed the cut last time.

For starters, we can establish that the three strong points I highlighted last time are all still in effect. First, Lomax reiterates that not all interpretations of certain behaviours are uncontested. Though we have interesting evidence of swimming tracks made by small theropods, sauropod swimming tracks are more controversial, while palaeontologists continue to discuss whether the rocks swallowed by marine reptiles (gastroliths) acted as ballast or digestive aids. Second, Lomax continues to shine a light on the inner workings of palaeontology. When an excavator bucket cuts right through an elasmosaur fossil, he brushes this aside with a casual “These things happen” (p. 240). Several case studies show how certain fossil discoveries play out over decades of intermittent study and attempts to relocate historic dig sites. Third, Lomax continues to mix entertaining popular science writing that has lost none of its enthusiasm with gentle education. He still defines terminology on first use and continues to stress the relevance of studying animal behaviour today to understand animals of the past.

More importantly, The Secret Lives of Dinosaurs improves on its predecessor in several respects, most noticeably in its lush presentation. The publisher has thrown its full weight behind this book, printing it in colour on thicker paper stock. It is thus noticeably heavier than Locked in Time, even after accounting for its extra 54 pages. Bob Nicholls’s excellent artwork—and there is a lot of it—really pops this time around, while the numerous photos and illustrations of fossils are crisp and informative. One outstanding example of how this is put to good use is the section on the fossil evidence for caudal autotomy, i.e. the voluntary amputation of one’s tail, shown by many small reptiles today as a defence against predators. Page 117 shows two colour photos of a lizard fossil under visible and UV light, the latter revealing a regenerated, cartilaginous tail invisible to the naked eye. Another change is that all entries are slightly longer, increasing from an average of 4–5 pages to 5–7 pages. On several occasions, Lomax uses this to detail the chain of reasoning by which scientists eliminate competing explanations to arrive at their conclusions. How do you tell apart stomach contents from fossil embryos when a species is a known cannibal? Have we found evidence of ammonite eggs, or did another cephalopod repurpose empty ammonite shells? And how do you conclude that a combined trackway is evidence of two giant millipedes mating?

Finally, I think that more of the same, when done well, is not a bad thing. On that note, Lomax has again curated a collection of truly exceptional fossils. Though at least two case studies were discussed in Uncovering Dinosaur Behavior and that giant Tyrannosaurus rex turd featured in King Tyrant, much here was new to me. Never mind the title, this is about much more than just dinosaurs. Lomax jokes how one of the best ways of surviving in the fossil record is being eaten, as evidenced by descriptions of a new lizard and a new beetle species from respectively Microraptor stomach contents and coprolites from (likely) Silesaurus. And while the present often informs the past, sometimes the past reveals something about biology today, such as the discovery of an amber-encased fossil of a tiny springtail hitching a ride on a mayfly. Conventional wisdom had it that springtails spread via oceanic currents or aerial plankton; now we can add phoresy (the act of attaching oneself to a host organism to catch a free ride) to that list. Or take the footprint on a coprolite, showing that crocodilians, too, sometimes stepped in it. Or the scars on a plant leaf that, according to one team of researchers, exactly match those made by zombified ants today when they clamp their jaws down on a leaf vein just before dying and sprouting a fungus from their head. Yep, an unusual example of fossilised evidence of ant-fungal parasitism! It is hard to pick favourites with such a remarkable list of fossils.

How Lomax got Slash from Guns N’ Roses (!) to provide a blurb for the book? I am sure there is an interesting story here, but his praise, placed prominently on the cover, is one that I can echo. If you liked Locked in Time, this book is a no-brainer, improving on the execution of the concept. If you would like a novel kind of popular palaeontology book, whether for yourself or for somebody else, this book also comes highly recommended.

Book review: Spinosaur Tales

***** A nuanced and detailed overview

These fish-eating and sail-backed (well, some of them) predatory dinosaurs are as enigmatic as they are controversial, and writing a book about them means navigating both fragmentary remains and strongly held opinions. So, who better to tackle this challenge than two of the best names in the business? This thoughtful book brings together palaeontologists Dave Hone and Mark P. Witton to discuss everything we do and do not know about spinosaurs.

Hone & Witton are, I think, exceptionally well-suited to write a book about a controversial group where so much is still unknown or subject to revision. Next to a track record of popular science books on dinosaurs, both authors stand out for their careful and nuanced views. Spinosaur Tales is logically structured and flows well. In their preface, the authors pre-empt concerns about this book becoming obsolete by acknowledging that they “can only present a snapshot of spinosaur science as it races along in the winter of 2024” (p. 8). This is followed by twelve chapters that take a detailed tour through research on the family Spinosauridae. Rather than a chapter-by-chapter summary, I want to focus on why spinosaurs are such a controversial group to begin with, how Hone & Witton tackle this, and how they have written an outstanding book in the process.

One of the foremost reasons why spinosaurs are such a challenging group is their fragmentary fossil record: we have not a single complete skeleton. Partial skeletons are or were (Spinosaurus) available for some species, but many currently named species are contentious, based on fragmentary remains such as loose teeth, bits of jaw, and some vertebrae. Despite having been named over a century ago, “we are still forming the foundation of our knowledge” (p. 23).

Though this situation is not unique to spinosaurs, there are two further complicating factors. I just mentioned Spinosaurus in the past tense, and this leads into a remarkable bit of history in that Stromer’s original 1915 Egyptian Spinosaurus aegyptiacus fossil was destroyed in an Allied bombing raid during WWII. All that remains are his drawings and descriptions, which continues to frustrate research to this day. The second problem is that some recent material has been bought from commercial fossil collectors who frequently do not record the geological context (i.e. the geological stratum and thus the age) of their finds and often only excavate the parts they can sell. The lack of standardised methods during such excavations means that vital scientific information continues to be lost, further hindering research.

Given these difficulties, our understanding of spinosaurs changes continuously. While certain past ideas might seem like howlers today, Hone & Witton provide nuanced historical context to clarify that they were reasonable given what we knew at the time. When described in 1986, Baryonyx walkeri was initially dismissed as a spinosaur. Similarly, a crocodilian origin for spinosaurs was long considered a possibility, based on the superficial anatomical resemblances between their skulls. A different sort of challenge is the celebrity status that spinosaurs attained in the 2000s, partially thanks to the movie Jurassic Park III, and partially to a relative glut of new finds. Spinosaur research is now newsworthy and thus a frequent subject of hype and exaggerated controversy. Online communities of dinosaur enthusiasts closely follow every academic volley and riposte and engage in “strongly worded discourse about their implications” (p. 18). A good example of this was the public unveiling of a new specimen from Morocco in 2014 that pushed the idea that Spinosaurus swam. Hone & Witton patiently but firmly consider this idea from multiple angles and show that, though we have several lines of evidence that Spinosaurus ate fish, it would have made a poor swimmer.

A consequence of this newfound fame is that spinosaur researchers are faced with questions “that demand simple answers, yet warrant complex, nuanced responses” (p. 287). I think that this, in a nutshell, beautifully describes what Hone & Witton have achieved here: Spinosaur Tales is a book-length exercise in nuanced responses. An important component of this, vital when writing a popular science book, is to familiarise readers with those aspects of palaeontology that its practitioners often take for granted. Most books fail to explain that the concept of a species differs in biology and palaeontology, something Hone & Witton thankfully clarify. Figuring out how many fossil species were distinct biological entities and whether the group was as diverse as we think is difficult. Similarly, I often feel that many books fail to emphasise that “fossilisation is a biasing, distorting process […] giving us partial, often skewed insights into ancient floras and faunas” (p. 107). The authors repeatedly remind you of the many caveats when interpreting this imperfect and incompletely sampled record.

Finally, the authors deserve praise for their progressive attitudes towards, and delicate handling of, the discipline’s historical baggage. Many past expeditions that collected important spinosaur material were “classic example[s] of scientific colonialism” (p. 53). There is similarly controversy over two proposed species from Brazil. With some remains now residing in a German museum, Hone & Witton are in favour of repatriation, both to clear up the taxonomic issue, but also to “rectify an injustice inflicted against Brazilian fossil heritage” (p. 51). And what to do with a historical figure such as naturalist Sir Richard Owen? Handle him delicately, I guess. Hone & Witton walk the fine line between acknowledging that he was at times a deeply unpleasant person who engaged in all sorts of skulduggery to advance his career, without erasing his significant achievements.

Witton is a professional palaeoartist, and this book benefits from a diverse selection of his illustrations. There is an eight-page colour plate section showcasing his well-known naturalistic artwork, while the diagrams of skulls and bones show his skills as a draughtsman. What caught my eye, however, are his black-and-white drawings that show life reconstructions and sit somewhere between doodles and comic book art. They reveal a different side to his artwork that I was not yet familiar with.

Overall, Spinosaur Tales is a thoughtful and accessible book about these enigmatic dinosaurs. It both explains why spinosaurs are such a difficult group to study, and then rises to the challenge by presenting a nuanced overview of what we know, what we can reasonably infer, and what is spin.

Book review: The New Dinosaurs

***** Still as captivating and entertaining as in 1988

What if the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs had missed? What might today’s fauna look like then? These are the sorts of questions entertained by speculative zoology, biology’s version of the fiction genre of alternate history. Geologist and freelance author Dougal Dixon is widely credited with launching the modern speculative zoology movement with his 1981 book After Man, a facsimile of which was published in 2018 by Breakdown Press. Fast forward to 2025, and now we have a similar reprint of The New Dinosaurs.

The book follows a similar setup to After Man. It opens with introductory material before presenting the new dinosaurs. The point of the introduction is that, although the scenario is fictional, it is developed according to sound scientific principles. Dixon thus introduces you to the basics of palaeogeography, zoogeography, and Earth’s main habitat types. He also explains what dinosaurs are, how they went extinct in our world, and how the tree of life took shape in this alternate universe where they did not. Some of this material has been updated, but I will get to that.

The stars of the book are, of course, the critters that Dixon has dreamt up, and what a wonderful menagerie they are. The artwork really helps bring them to life. Every creature receives at least one life reconstruction in colour showing the whole animal in a natural setting, with some receiving additional smaller drawings in colour or b/w to highlight anatomical characteristics or behavioural sequences. Twelve people were involved with this book. Two, John Butler and Philip Hood, are return guests; the other ten are new collaborators. With such a large number of illustrators, inevitably, some appealed more to me than others. Butler and Hood’s work is again superb, but I also really liked the work of Steve Holden (he drew the Cutlasstooth on the front cover and the Lank, on which more below) and Martin Knowelden (he drew the Paraso, a wading pterosaur, and the Whulk, on which more below). Some of the depictions of sauropods are rather dumpy and have not aged terribly well, betraying the fact that this *was* 1980s palaeoart, but, by and large, I think the depictions hold up well while exuding a certain nostalgia.

So, how has life evolved in this alternate universe? The mammals have remained small. With the evolution of grasses, numerous dinosaurs and pterosaurs have become grazers. Coelurosaurs and hypsilophodonts are two dinosaur groups that have left many descendants, the former notably spinning off a successful and diverse group that became arboreal: the arbrosaurs. The pterosaurs have been similarly successful and evolved into many surprising forms, occupying some of the niches taken by birds in our world, and losing flight on multiple occasions.

Some creatures look very familiar. The above-mentioned Lank, a flightless grass-eating pterosaur, closely resembles our giraffe; the Whulk, a filter-feeding pliosaur, takes the place of our baleen whale; the Cribrum, a theropod descendant, is an unapologetically pink filter-feeding flamingo; and the Nauger, an arboreal dinosaur that bores into wood, resembles our Pileated Woodpecker (with Dixon even winking at the reader by speculating that, in another world, this niche could conceivably be taken by a bird). Though these creatures make the point that we should not be surprised by convergent evolution, the book contains more than just like-for-like reptilian replacements of our mammals and birds.

There are some really interesting mashups. The Gestalt, which evolved from a pachycephalosaur, has become a nest-building dinosaur that lives in colonies in which only one female queen breeds. In both appearance and behaviour, they combine elements of naked mole rats, beavers, and ants. The Crackbeak, an arbrosaur, has developed the arboreal physique of a spider monkey and the seed-cracking beak of a toucan.

Some species sport anatomical features that at first blush seem out of this world, until you realise that, actually, they are very much of this world. The Nauger’s long second finger used to winkle larvae out of holes in trees? The Aye-aye of Madagascar has it too. And surely the Northclaw’s arrangement of having an enlarged claw on just one hand is… Ah, yes, the fiddler crab. Mind you, life has found unexpected solutions in Dixon’s world. One recurrent feature is stiff tails, held erect like flagpoles, with the non-crested sprintosaur even called – I see what you did there, Dixon! – Vexillosaurus. Outside of squirrels in our world, this strikes me as very uncommon. Three arboreal species have hands where both outer fingers are opposable, which is also found in our koalas. As Desmond Morris writes in the foreword, it is the close observation of biological principles and outliers that imbues these fictional creatures with a high degree of realism. This is as much entertainment as it is a serious exploration of biology by means of made-up animals.

There are two further elements worth discussing. First, the quality of the reproduction is overall good, though, as with After Man, perhaps a tad on the dark side: the surface texture on the black Tromble and Balaclav is hard to see. Second, Dixon has again made corrections to the text, which have been printed in a slightly different font that can just be made out. The biggest changes are made to the introductory material. The sections on the extinction and definition of dinosaurs have been rewritten to reflect advances in our knowledge, and the classic tree-like diagram on pages 12–15 has been completely redrawn. The biggest change to the creature section is minor: a small box now mentions that stegosaurs were extinct by the early Cretaceous, in line with modern taxonomy, while in the 1988 version, stegosaurs survived on the Indian subcontinent until 2 mya. Beyond this, minor corrections have been made to some taxonomic affiliations, the date of the end-Cretaceous (now 66 Ma ago), and references to the Tertiary (now Cenozoic). However, this process could have done with a round of proofreading as references to 65 Ma and the Tertiary still abound, while the example of a modern cladogram on p. 10 is unfortunately full of spelling errors. It seems the drawing of the Kloon skull on p. 96 was accidentally left out, even if the label describing it is still present. Arguably, these are minor errors.

Overall, The New Dinosaurs remains an incredibly entertaining romp into speculative zoology. If you possess a copy of the original, you have a nice vintage book, and I would not rush out to replace it. No bonus material has been included. However, for all of us who never bought this book upon release and were condemned to the inflated prices on the aftermarket, it is a great joy that Breakdown Press has made this book available again.

Book Review – Mesozoic Art II: Dinosaurs and Other Ancient Animals in Art

***** A remarkably diverse collection of the very best of current palaeoart

Comic book editor, writer, and artist Steve White and palaeozoologist Darren Naish team up once again to bring you another lavish, large-format art book with the very best of current palaeoart. If you bought the previous volume, I am pleased to say that this book is more of the same, which is the best possible outcome one could hope for. It is also *more* of the same, as the book is bigger than its predecessor, featuring 25 artists that together span the full gamut from upcoming talent to seasoned veterans, and from cartoonish to photorealistic illustrations. Mesozoic Art II provides a balanced cross-section of jaw-dropping artwork that portrays not just dinosaurs, but also numerous other organisms that are less often depicted. If ever you needed proof that the palaeoart community has matured and is taking its craft seriously, this book is your ticket.

Before even cracking open the book, take a moment to appreciate the object. Remove that dust jacket to marvel at Rebecca Dart’s gorgeous illustration of the sauropod Qijianglong by moonlight. Next, check out the beautiful endpaper illustrations by Gaëlle Seguillon. This book leaves no opportunity unused to impress. Also important: Mesozoic Art II is the same physical dimensions (31×28cm) as Mesozoic Art; and, for that matter, its spiritual predecessors Dinosaur Art and Dinosaur Art II.

For the second instalment, White & Naish have stuck to the same formula, giving each artist, no matter their fame, ten pages each to show off their very best. The page count has grown from 208 to 256 pages, allowing for more artists to be featured: 25 instead of 20. Also nice, it is a completely new crop: none of these featured in Mesozoic Art. The mix of nationalities is heavily weighted towards North America (nine artists) and Europe (twelve), with the remaining three hailing from Asia (two) and Australia (one).

In his foreword, naturalist Chris Packham praises the artwork for both its stylistic diversity and scientific accuracy. As White & Naish explain in their introduction, neither is coincidental. Next to producing a beautiful book, their aims are twofold. First, to show that scientific accuracy need not come at the expense of artistic expressiveness. Second, to continue to adjust preconceptions and correct misconceptions, old and new, as to what dinosaurs looked like and how they behaved. The result is a panorama of today’s palaeoart that is remarkably varied on several fronts.

Thus, the contributors range from non-vocational artists to established professionals. Haider Jaffri might be new to the scene and training to become a dentist, but he already produces some remarkable artwork. Similarly, freelance artist Simone Giovanardi specialises in depicting extinct penguins, which is simply delightful. At the other end of the spectrum, you have professionals such as Beth Zaiken who, alongside other work, has produced large murals for museums. I will never tire of poring over the kinds of grand panoramas she produces. Gaëlle Seguillon has, among other things, worked on the documentary Prehistoric Planet, and her artwork is incredibly atmospheric.

Most artists work exclusively digitally, and only a few turn to traditional tools such as pencils, markers, graphite, acrylics, watercolours, etc. Lest this be mistaken as a judgemental comment, let me repeat what Tom Björklund wrote in Dinosaur Art II: “Painting with a computer isn’t about pushing buttons […] the artist’s hand still holds a pen or a brush and the craftsmanship required is pretty much the same” (p. 134 therein). Not being an artist myself, if it were not for the figure legends, I would not be able to tell the difference, and the choice of medium does not get in the way of style.

Indeed, the variety of styles on display is dazzling, fully meeting the editors’ stated first aim. There is plenty of (photo)realistic work, but about a third of artists make more cartoonish artwork. Possibly the most divisive inclusion of what the editors call “‘palaeontologically themed’ art” (p. 3) is comic book artist Lewis LaRosa. There are a mech-suit battling Tyrannosaurus rex, panels from his comic Savage that have a human-fighting dinosaurs and pterosaurs, but also some of his anatomical sketches and studies, as he makes conventional palaeoart too.

This kaleidoscope of styles does not get in the way of scientific accuracy. I think White & Naish have succeeded in curating a selection that shows how all these artists take their craft seriously and incorporate recent scientific developments. Soft-tissue reconstruction has been fully embraced, and there are lips, flaps, folds, fluff, and feathers galore. Several of the drawings have been specifically made to accompany research. There are many more organisms beyond dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and marine reptiles; Naish has always been clear that the “Mesozoic” in the title should be taken loosely. Invertebrates and vertebrates from both before and after this era feature, including stem-whales, early reptiles, protomammals, and others.

The final aspect worth highlighting is the naturalistic realism. The full range of animal behaviour is on display here. Yes, there are scenes of violence, but they are an appropriate minority given what the time budget of most animals is spent on. Also, did I mention the skies? Good grief! More so than in Mesozoic Art, I felt that numerous artists have embraced cloudy, rainy, stormy, or otherwise moody skies, playing with colour, light, time of day, and atmosphere to produce incredibly memorable pictures.

By now, these four art portfolios are becoming a remarkable collection of snapshots of palaeoart over the last two decades. Examining the dates of the artwork featured here, and given that Mesozoic Art II was published “only” three years after Mesozoic Art, only five artists exclusively feature artwork from 2022 to 2024, while 17 artists feature artwork going back to 2017 and later (i.e. the period also covered by Mesozoic Art). This overlap in time means that both Mesozoic Art volumes capture similar ideas and fashions. That said, I am tempted to speculate that future art historians could tease out trends in the evolution of palaeoart by comparing the four portfolios. However, you do not have to be an art historian to enjoy this stunning production. If you love dinosaur artwork and palaeoart more generally, get it now, add it to your wishlist, or give it to that special palaeo-person in your life. This is another stunner you will not want to miss. Here’s to Mesozoic Art III!

Book Review – The Lives of Bats: A Natural History

The Lives of Bats is part of Princeton University Press’s series The Lives of the Natural World that has grown to 14 volumes. Technically speaking, it is designed and produced by UniPress Books, which I have described elsewhere as the spiritual successor of Ivy Press and which is similarly known for producing good-looking books. As with the other volumes, this one is chock-a-block with full-colour photos, to the point that you would be hard-pressed to find a single page of plain text. It follows the same formula as other volumes, ending each chapter with a short species gallery that profiles four or five relevant or noteworthy species.

Professor of biology DeeAnn M. Reeder’s research programme encompasses physiology, immunology, disease ecology, behaviour, evolution, and conservation, and bats are often her model organism of choice. She is only all too aware of the dislike and fear that bats instil, especially as reservoir hosts of diseases, so an important focus of this book is to demystify and (if that is even a word) de-demonise bats by giving a factual and up-to-date primer on their biology. After a brief introduction, Reeder picks seven topics—evolution, anatomy, echolocation, diet, thermoregulation, reproduction, and disease—before ending with a chapter on past and present interactions between bats and humans.

If there is a unifying theme to this book, it is how much the biology of bats is shaped by the demands of flight. Anatomical adaptations are the first to come to mind, from the ankle spur (a calcar) that supports the wing membrane between the hind limbs (the uropatagium), to the five extra muscles that control the tautness and curvature of the wing membrane. Reeder’s favourite overlooked adaptation is the hind limbs that are rotated 180°, meaning the soles of the feet face forward and the knees bend backwards compared to other mammals.

The demands of flight extend far beyond anatomy, though. To conserve energy, bats can go into torpor, lowering their metabolic rate and body temperature. This can be as brief as a few hours or be extended for weeks on end, at which point we call it hibernation. Like humans, bats generate their own body heat (endothermy), but unlike us, they can conserve energy by allowing their body temperature to track the environmental temperature (heterothermy) while we maintain a steady body temperature (homeothermy). The need for energy conservation even impacts their reproduction. Bat pups are huge compared to their parents, meaning pregnancy is energetically costly on two fronts: foetal development takes energy, but so does flying around with all that extra mass. To make sure birth coincides with peak food availability, female bats can store sperm (a well-known trait in many organisms) but also slow down or even pause (!) foetal development.

Reeder features many other notable traits, adding an extra layer of information to the basic facts that will be rattling around in most people’s heads. Sure, bats echolocate, but what I did not realise is that some groups emit sound out of their mouth and others out of their nose. The family Pteropodidae, the fruit bats, have lost echolocation (fruit tends not to move), yet some species have secondarily re-evolved it, relying on wing-clapping or tongue-clicking to help them navigate their cave roosts. And where many bats issue a call and then listen out for the echo, some bats do not separate the two in time but in frequency, calling at a different frequency than the echoes return at. This nifty feat of sensory biology allows them to produce sound while simultaneously receiving and interpreting the incoming echoes.

I also came away from this book with a much better appreciation of the family Phyllostomidae. When the University of Chicago Press published a book dedicated to this family in 2020, I was admittedly nonplussed: what is so special about them? The incredible diversity of their diet. This family includes carnivorous bats dining on small reptiles, birds, and mammals. It includes the three species of vampire bat whose sanguivorous habits have become the stuff of legend. More relevant but less appreciated is that, by eating fruit, pollen, and nectar, they are important pollinators, including of many cacti and important crops.

Reeder is at her most strident when it comes to the role of bats in diseases, including COVID-19. Yes, bats harbour viruses and other pathogens that impact public health, but spillovers are a human problem caused by our relentless destruction of wildlife habitat. We should be wary of “the sometimes sensationalistic portrayal of bats, writ large, as hosts of deadly viruses” (p. 250); the same can be said of many other animal groups, including primates, rodents, and birds. Reeder is a proponent of the One Health framework that recognises that you cannot tackle human, animal, and ecosystem health in isolation because they are all interconnected.

Given the format and aim of this series, Reeder only has the space to go so deep on these and other topics. However, as with the book I reviewed previously, this is not just a regurgitation of popular information. You can tell this is written by a specialist in her field who is carefully weighing up how much information to give you and how much to hold back. The resources section recommends some of the many technical books if you want to read deeper, plus a two-page reference section to journal articles, including studies up to 2023 and 2024.

Bats are particularly photogenic, and the editorial team at UniPress Books has scoured several stock photo libraries, as well as the work of numerous individual photographers, credited in the back of the book. There are memorable photos here while a small number of neat infographics are contributed by illustrator Sarah Skeate.

The Lives of Bats continues the series’ successful formula: challenge one or two subject experts to write an accessible introduction that can serve multiple audiences. For novices, this is a great first stop on bats that will give you a well-informed introduction to their unique biology (and equally, it is a book that you can safely gift them). However, the book is also rewarding for biologists who just happen to have studied other organisms but have a hankering for bats. I enjoyed The Lives of Bats more than I thought I would, and by the end, I felt it had subtly enriched my knowledge.

Book review: Is a River Alive?

***** A hydrological odyssey

Nature writer Robert Macfarlane will need little introduction, having authored a string of successful books on people, landscape, and language. Billed as his most political book to date, Is a River Alive? sees Macfarlane wrestle with the titular question and examine its relevance to the nascent Rights of Nature movement.

At the heart of this book are three long, 70–100-page parts that detail visits to three river systems in Ecuador, India, and Canada. They are separated by short palate cleansers, describing brief visits to local springs close to his home in Cambridge. In the back, you will find a surprisingly thorough ten page glossary, notes, a select bibliography, a combined acknowledgements and aftermaths section detailing developments up to publication, and an index.

This dry enumeration aside, it is the quality of the writing that we are all here for, and Macfarlane is on fine form as he immerses you in the landscapes he visits. These journeys are not solo affairs, however, and in each place he is accompanied by knowledgeable local guides: some are long-term collaborators, others he has only just met. It is a motley crew that includes a mycologist, a musician, and a lawyer, as well as judges, activists, back-country experts, and his close friend Wayne Chambliss. Macfarlane has a knack for giving warm and memorable portraits of them, as well as others they meet along the way.

The political aspect of this book stems from the fact that all these river systems are under threat; from mining in Ecuador, industrial pollution in India, and the construction of hydroelectric dams in Canada. In part, the book is a reportage on the environmental harm caused by resource extraction, economic development, and heavy industry, and the slow violence it inflicts on predominantly poor and marginalised communities. In Chennai, he graphically details how this has already come to pass, while in Ecuador and Canada, it could come to pass if certain companies were to get their way. In response, Western and Indigenous activists have rallied behind the Rights of Nature movement that originated in 1972 when lawyer Christopher Stone asked whether trees should have standing. Its proponents argue that natural entities such as mountains, forests, and rivers can and should have rights—legal personhood even—and thus protection by law.

So, is a river alive? What makes this book intriguing and thought-provoking is that Macfarlane does not provide a straightforward answer (“Yes, of course rivers are alive and here is why”). Instead, he wrestles with this question in full view of the reader. Clearly, he supports the environmentalist agenda and quickly counters the claim of anthropomorphism. He refers to rivers as a “who” and not an “it”, condemning the habit of the English language to “it” all natural entities, “a mode of address that reduces them to the status of stuff” (p. 22). I like to reference the work of Eileen Crist to make the point that language shapes our reality, and Macfarlane condenses it masterfully here: “Words make worlds” (p. 22).

Macfarlane’s struggle plays out along two axes. First, how can we really speak on nature’s behalf? What does a river want? He worries that in granting rights to nature, we will simply end up with “human proxies […] ventriloquizing ‘river’ and ‘forest’ in a kind of cos-play animism” (p. 83). His close friend Wayne justifiably asks whether the whole movement is just “a disguised form of political manoeuvring” (p. 292), in which assigning personhood to natural entities merely becomes a means to an end. Second, there is a philosophical and linguistic struggle. What words can truly capture this? “The history of literature is littered with the debris of attempts to utter water” (p. 289). In searching for a “grammar of animacy” (sensu Kimmerer), he is frustrated with “language’s short reach” (p. 260) and repeatedly runs into a wall. Partially, it seems the answers cannot be verbalised but have to be bodily experienced, as his journeys show him; partially, Indigenous thinking provides him with answers.

On that latter point I have to be honest: though I am supportive of this cause, as a child of the Western, scientific tradition, Indigenous thinking does not resonate with me much, and this is entirely *my* shortcoming. Macfarlane, it seems, sympathises, struggling with it himself: “It requires unlearning, a process much harder than learning” (p. 19). That said, there are moments where he speaks to the biologist in me, such as when discussing the deep-time maps of geologist Harold Fisk that show the many past meanders of the Mississippi River snaking across the landscape, making rivers seem very much alive. Similarly, when mycologist Giuliana Furci points out the consequences of deforestation (when the cloud-forest goes, so do its rivers), you have to wonder: are these rivers a form of niche construction, or even (if you squint hard, I admit) an extended phenotype of a kind? By and large, however, even if life is a fuzzy phenomenon that lacks sharp boundaries, the scientist in me feels that the question is stretching a metaphor beyond its breaking point.

So, I ask again, is a river alive? Better perhaps to ask, I think: Does it matter? Given how entwined life is with water and how dependent human societies are on rivers, the question seems moot to me. For most people, this is ultimately about environmental protection, in which case, whether or not a river has vital signs is irrelevant. However, if personhood is what it takes, given existing legal frameworks, then, sure, why not? A second concern I have is that of enforcement. All these lofty declarations risk being yet more paper parks if they do not have the force of the law behind them. Though Macfarlane does not explicitly raise this point, both his main text and his aftermaths give examples where judges have successfully invoked the Rights of Nature to halt or prevent companies from extracting natural resources. A final concern, as was so clearly argued in The Irresponsible Pursuit of Paradise, is that protective measures risk merely displacing resource extraction to somewhere else with less oversight. As long as there is demand for resources and money on the table, companies will continue extracting value from nature. This deeper cause is not dealt with here, though expecting Macfarlane to imagine the end of capitalism, pretty please, would be a tad unrealistic of me. That is a thorny, multifaceted problem if ever there was one.

Is a River Alive? is an intriguing and thought-provoking piece of nature writing that refuses to give easy answers. I imagine that this is not what Macfarlane’s readers are after anyway, and, if so, they will be amply served by the spectacle of a master wordsmith grappling with a weighty question.