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Danna Staaf earned a PhD in biology from Stanford University with her studies of baby squid. She is the author of Monarchs of the Sea and The Lady and the Octopus, and she has written for Science, Atlas Obscura, and Nautilus. She lives in California with her human family, a cat, and a garden full of grubs, caterpillars, maggots, and innumerable other babies.
Richard Strathmann, PhD, is an expert in the diverse patterns of animal development, with a particular focus on marine animals. He finds the beauty and variety of changes from eggs through embryos, larvae, and metamorphosis endlessly entertaining. He joined the faculty of the University of Washington in 1973.
Contents
Introduction: A World of the Babies, by the Babies, for the Babies
PART I: BUNDLES OF JOY
1. Eggs: Not Just a Bird Thing
2. Provisioning: How to Pack Your Baby's Lunch
3. Brooding Eggs: Carry Them, Sit on Them, Swallow Them Whole
4. Pregnancy: Not Just a Mammal Thing
PART II: SALAD DAYS
5. Larvae: When Kids Look Like Aliens
6. Unaccompanied Minors: Where Do the Escargot?
7. Raising Them Right: Conservation and Sustainability
8. Evolution: What It Does and Doesn't Recapitulate
PART III: COMING OF AGE
9. Metamorphosis, but Happier Than Kafka
10. Juveniles: Neither One Thing nor Another
11. Emergence: A Cicada Case Study
Epilogue: Our Quiet Dependence on Babies
A first-of-its-kind pop-science journey into the hidden world of baby animals
Entire ecosystems rest on the shoulders (or tentacles, or jointed exoskeletons) of animal babies; it's time we paid them more attention. In Nursery Earth, researcher Danna Staaf invites readers to explore these tiny, secret lives, revealing some of nature's strangest and most ingenious workings. A salamander embryo breathes with the help of algae inside its cells. The young grub of a Goliath beetle dwarfs its parents. Fluffy flamingo chicks delay turning pink for years to let adults know they're not mating rivals and to encourage friendly behavior.
Our bias toward adult animals (not least because babies can be hard to find) means these wonders have long gone under-researched. But for all kinds of animals, if we overlook their babies, we miss out on the most fascinating?and consequential?time in their lives. Nursery Earth makes the case that these young creatures are not just beings in progress but beings in their own right. Our planet needs them all: the maggots as much as the kittens!
