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From scorching deserts to frozen seabeds, from the highest peaks of the Himalaya to the hadal depths of the oceans, there are habitats on this Earth that appear inimical to life - yet in which it flourishes nevertheless. During the midday heat of the Sahara, silvery ants sprint from their nests to feed. In North American forests, wood frogs awaken each spring from solid blocks of ice. At the site of the Chernobyl disaster, fungi harness radiation to thrive.
Transporting readers to far-flung environments we could never call home, Super Natural paints an awe-inspiring portrait of life's resilience and ingenuity under the harshest circumstances. We meet creatures exquisitely adapted to endure unimaginable deprivations: of water, oxygen, food, sunlight. Alex Riley shows how, at nature's extremes, the rules of life as we know them are rewritten - and how, here, we can find hope for the future of life on Earth, and beyond.
Transporting readers to far-flung environments we could never call home, Super Natural paints an awe-inspiring portrait of life's resilience and ingenuity under the harshest circumstances. We meet creatures exquisitely adapted to endure unimaginable deprivations: of water, oxygen, food, sunlight. Alex Riley shows how, at nature's extremes, the rules of life as we know them are rewritten - and how, here, we can find hope for the future of life on Earth, and beyond.
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Reviews
"Super Natural is a book filled with nature's wonders: painted turtles that don't take a breath for six months, kangaroo rats that survive without drinking water, icefish with no haemoglobin in the Antarctic and bar-headed geese that migrate across the Himalaya at 7000 metres. It's about resilience, endurance and ingenuity - about finding a niche or a different way of being alive - and it's a comb
Andrea Wulf, award-winning author of The Invention of Nature
"Alex Riley's Super Natural is a beautiful bestiary, a compendium of Earth's most interesting extremophiles who show us how life persists and even thrives in the most difficult circumstances. Surprising and oddly reassuring."
Cal Flyn, award-winning author of Islands of Abandonment