Animals In Flight

Wings carry tiny insects, fluttering butterflies, and backyard birds, and they even once propelled some dinosaurs up and through the skies. Find out how, when, and why birds and beasts have taken to the air, and discover how wings work in this informative and brilliantly illustrated book about flight.

Readers are introduced to animals--both birds and beasts--that have taken to the air in this informative and brilliantly illustrated book about flight by the Caldecott Honor-winning authors of "What Do You Do with a Tail Like This?" Full color.

"On the Wing is the first book to take a comprehensive look at the evolution of flight in all four groups of powered flyers: insects, pterosaurs, birds, and bats."--Book jacket.

It's a book of world records... of bones! Guess whose bones are the longest, shortest, heaviest, spikiest, and more. With touchable skeletons! An International Literacy Association Teachers' Choice Title (2018) A Texas Topaz Nonfiction Reading List Title (2019) Ten record-breaking animal bones are introduced through a series of superlatives set up as a guessing game with clues. Readers examine animals' skeletons and guess to whom they belong; the answers are revealed in vibrant, full-color scenic habitats, with easily understood — and humorous — explanations. This entertaining introduction to the connection between animal bones (anatomy) and behavior is playful, relatable, and includes touch-and-feel finishes that bring the bones to life!

This book is as a detailed, but highly readable and balanced account of the history of animal space flights carried out by all nations, but principally the United States and the Soviet Union. It explores the ways in which animal high-altitude and space flight research impacted on space flight biomedicine and technology, and how the results - both successful and disappointing - allowed human beings to then undertake that same hazardous journey with far greater understanding and confidence. This complete and authoritative book will undoubtedly become the ultimate authority on animal space flights.

"Flight is the essence of birdness. I strive to illustrate the beauty and complexity of avian flight." -- Peter Cavanagh 100 Flying Birds: Photographing the Mechanics of Flight offers a vivid and varied glimpse into the world of birds. A white-tailed eagle plummeting through a Japanese sky, a brown pelican striking a silhouette against an Ecuadorian sunset, an Atlantic puffin carrying its fish dinner above the Scottish coast, or a keel-billed toucan gliding through a Costa Rican jungle canopy; readers will marvel at the splendor of birds in flight while learning the techniques to capture these gravity-defying moments from a world-class nature photographer. For each picture, author and photographer Peter Cavanagh shares his most evocative thoughts: the challenges of the shoot, the beauty of the location, and the curiosities of the species. Bird people will enjoy the bird photographs and facts, travelers will gobble up the tales of distant parts, and photographers will absorb the technical details. For instance, readers might be surprised to see that a very slow shutter speed can freeze the motion of hummingbird wings. Peter Cavanagh has collected 100 beautiful photos spanning a wide range of species. The subjects of each of the 11 chapters are: Eagles Hummingbirds Gulls and Terns Small Waterbirds Large Waterbirds Ducks, Geese and Swans Raptors Condors and Corvids Cranes Songbirds Favorites

A leading figure in the emerging field of extinction studies, Thom van Dooren puts philosophy into conversation with the natural sciences and his ethnographic encounters to vivify the cultural and ethical significance of modern-day extinctions. Unlike other meditations on the subject, Flight Ways incorporates the particularities of real animals and their worlds, drawing philosophers, natural scientists, and general readers into the experience of living among and losing biodiversity. Each chapter of Flight Ways focuses on a different species or group of birds: North Pacific albatrosses, Indian vultures, an endangered colony of penguins in Australia, Hawaiian crows, and the iconic whooping cranes of North America. Written in eloquent and moving prose, the book takes stock of what is lost when a life form disappears from the world—the wide-ranging ramifications that ripple out to implicate a number of human and more-than-human others. Van Dooren intimately explores what life is like for those who must live on the edge of extinction, balanced between life and oblivion, taking care of their young and grieving their dead. He bolsters his studies with real-life accounts from scientists and local communities at the forefront of these developments. No longer abstract entities with Latin names, these species become fully realized characters enmeshed in complex and precarious ways of life, sparking our sense of curiosity, concern, and accountability toward others in a rapidly changing world.

'Nature's Flyers' is a detailed account of the current scientific understanding of the primary aspects of flight in nature. The author explains the physical basis of flight, drawing upon bats, birds, insects, pterosaurs and even winged seeds.