The Ghost With Trembling WingsThe Ghost With Trembling Wings
Science, Wishful Thinking, and the Search for Lost Species
Title rated 5 out of 5 stars, based on 1 ratings(1 rating)
Book, 2002
Current format, Book, 2002, 1st ed, No Longer Available.Book, 2002
Current format, Book, 2002, 1st ed, No Longer Available. Offered in 0 more formatsThe naturalist author of Living on the Wind: Across the Hemisphere with Migratory Birds shares stories of the rediscovery of species previously believed extinct, discussing such topics as the Indian forest owlet, the thylacine of Tasmania, cloning laboratories, and the mysterious black panthers of England.
The author shares stories of the rediscovery of species previously believed to be extinct, discussing such topics as the Indian forest owlet, the thylacine of Tasmania, cloning laboratories, and the mysterious black panthers of England.
The earth is currently experiencing a massive extinction crisis, losing an estimated 30,000 unique species each year. Occasionally, a species formerly thought to be extinct reappears. In this text, naturalist Weidensaul recounts stories of the search for real and imagined lost species. Coverage includes the rediscovery of Gilbert's potoroo in western Australia in 1994, the hunt for the Loch Ness monster, and the efforts of scientists to recreate long-extinct animals in cloning laboratories. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
A round-the-world detective story about rediscovering vanished species Three or four times an hour, eighty or more times a day, a unique species of plant or animal vanishes forever. It is, scientists say, the worst global extinction crisis in the last sixty-five million years -- the hemorrhage of thirty thousand irreplaceable life-forms each year. And yet, every so often one of these lost species resurfaces, such as the Indian forest owlet, considered extinct for more than a century when it was rediscovered in 1997. Like heirlooms plucked from a burning house, they are gifts to an increasingly impoverished world. In The Ghost with Trembling Wings , naturalist Scott Weidensaul pursues these stories of loss and recovery, of endurance against the odds, and of surprising resurrections. The search takes Weidensaul to the rain forests of the Caribbean and Brazil in pursuit of long-lost birds, to the rugged mountains of Tasmania for the striped, wolflike marsupial known as the thylacine, to cloning laboratories where scientists struggle to re-create long-extinct animals, and even to the moorlands and tidy farms of England on the trail of mysterious black panthers whose existence seems to depend on the faith of those looking for them. The Ghost with Trembling Wings is a book of exploration and a survey of the frontiers of modern science and wildlife biology. It is, in the end, the story of our desire for a wilder, bigger, more complete world.
A round-the-world detective story about rediscovering vanished species
Three or four times an hour, eighty or more times a day, a unique species of plant or animal vanishes forever. It is, scientists say, the worst global extinction crisis in the last sixty-five million years -- the hemorrhage of thirty thousand irreplaceable life-forms each year. And yet, every so often one of these lost species resurfaces, such as the Indian forest owlet, considered extinct for more than a century when it was rediscovered in 1997. Like heirlooms plucked from a burning house, they are gifts to an increasingly impoverished world.
In The Ghost with Trembling Wings, naturalist Scott Weidensaul pursues these stories of loss and recovery, of endurance against the odds, and of surprising resurrections. The search takes Weidensaul to the rain forests of the Caribbean and Brazil in pursuit of long-lost birds, to the rugged mountains of Tasmania for the striped, wolflike marsupial known as the thylacine, to cloning laboratories where scientists struggle to re-create long-extinct animals, and even to the moorlands and tidy farms of England on the trail of mysterious black panthers whose existence seems to depend on the faith of those looking for them. The Ghost with Trembling Wings is a book of exploration and a survey of the frontiers of modern science and wildlife biology. It is, in the end, the story of our desire for a wilder, bigger, more complete world.
The author shares stories of the rediscovery of species previously believed to be extinct, discussing such topics as the Indian forest owlet, the thylacine of Tasmania, cloning laboratories, and the mysterious black panthers of England.
The earth is currently experiencing a massive extinction crisis, losing an estimated 30,000 unique species each year. Occasionally, a species formerly thought to be extinct reappears. In this text, naturalist Weidensaul recounts stories of the search for real and imagined lost species. Coverage includes the rediscovery of Gilbert's potoroo in western Australia in 1994, the hunt for the Loch Ness monster, and the efforts of scientists to recreate long-extinct animals in cloning laboratories. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
A round-the-world detective story about rediscovering vanished species Three or four times an hour, eighty or more times a day, a unique species of plant or animal vanishes forever. It is, scientists say, the worst global extinction crisis in the last sixty-five million years -- the hemorrhage of thirty thousand irreplaceable life-forms each year. And yet, every so often one of these lost species resurfaces, such as the Indian forest owlet, considered extinct for more than a century when it was rediscovered in 1997. Like heirlooms plucked from a burning house, they are gifts to an increasingly impoverished world. In The Ghost with Trembling Wings , naturalist Scott Weidensaul pursues these stories of loss and recovery, of endurance against the odds, and of surprising resurrections. The search takes Weidensaul to the rain forests of the Caribbean and Brazil in pursuit of long-lost birds, to the rugged mountains of Tasmania for the striped, wolflike marsupial known as the thylacine, to cloning laboratories where scientists struggle to re-create long-extinct animals, and even to the moorlands and tidy farms of England on the trail of mysterious black panthers whose existence seems to depend on the faith of those looking for them. The Ghost with Trembling Wings is a book of exploration and a survey of the frontiers of modern science and wildlife biology. It is, in the end, the story of our desire for a wilder, bigger, more complete world.
A round-the-world detective story about rediscovering vanished species
Three or four times an hour, eighty or more times a day, a unique species of plant or animal vanishes forever. It is, scientists say, the worst global extinction crisis in the last sixty-five million years -- the hemorrhage of thirty thousand irreplaceable life-forms each year. And yet, every so often one of these lost species resurfaces, such as the Indian forest owlet, considered extinct for more than a century when it was rediscovered in 1997. Like heirlooms plucked from a burning house, they are gifts to an increasingly impoverished world.
In The Ghost with Trembling Wings, naturalist Scott Weidensaul pursues these stories of loss and recovery, of endurance against the odds, and of surprising resurrections. The search takes Weidensaul to the rain forests of the Caribbean and Brazil in pursuit of long-lost birds, to the rugged mountains of Tasmania for the striped, wolflike marsupial known as the thylacine, to cloning laboratories where scientists struggle to re-create long-extinct animals, and even to the moorlands and tidy farms of England on the trail of mysterious black panthers whose existence seems to depend on the faith of those looking for them. The Ghost with Trembling Wings is a book of exploration and a survey of the frontiers of modern science and wildlife biology. It is, in the end, the story of our desire for a wilder, bigger, more complete world.
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- New York : North Point Press, 2002.
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