Great Adaptations: Star-Nosed Moles, Electric Eels, and Other Tales of Evolution’s Mysteries Solved

This had a very fine review in a major newspaper, and the topic sounded fascinating. The topic remains fascinating but the writing is about at grad student term paper level. The star-nosed mole is a fascinating creature, but it\’s not exactly a giant squid. Electric eels are promising, but they fizzle out. (The author recounts a potentially interesting effort to capture electric eels by exhausting them on horses, two of which were killed, but then goes on after a couple of brief paragraphs.) There is no writing here, just reporting on experiments and observations. Ironically, Catania quotes the late Stephen Jay Gould several times, who is one of the finest scientific writers I\’ve ever read. But he has learned nothing of his conversational, reader-related examples and metaphors. This is a long, slow slog through the swamps, and I felt like a mole by the time the book exhausted me. I didn\’t know what was on the surface, only what was far too deep and congested underground.

I bought this book after reading a review in the newspaper, and am glad I did. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and read it cover to cover in only a few days. The story of the animals in this book is fascinating for their very interesting adaptions, but more interesting is the author\’s road to understanding those adaptations, and how he uses excellent scientific method to do so. The animals described, and the behaviors they exhibit tells me that there is amazing complexity, even in the very small, and our road to understanding these across the biological spectrum is long; indeed we have just started out. Dr. Catania\’s writing style is engaging, and full of interesting anecdotes, quips, and side comments that add great color to what he is writing about, while making sure you continue on the line of inquiry with him. He\’s a gifted storyteller, and not every scientist is. My only quibble with the book is that the title is a bit misleading. Dr. Catania is clearly a strong believer in the entirety of the theory of evolution. The book makes a good case for natural selection leading to changes in an animal, and the ontogeny of the star of the star nosed mole, and it\’s appearance in fetal moles of other species does seem to lead to that conclusion. However, I\’m personally unconvinced that understanding adaptions in an organism necessarily leads to evidence for how that organism, body type, and cellular complexity, could arrive on the scene. So, I found myself a bit disappointed to learn that Dr. Catania doesn\’t even entertain the idea that maybe something larger is at work here in how these organisms came to be. I realize that science cannot prove or disprove a creator, but these adaptations, like many in the animal world, are so precisely tuned and fitted for the needs and environment of these animals, that it is difficult for me to understand how that idea might not even be of interest to the author. That aside, if you are even remotely curious about the world, enjoy a good tale, and maybe even would like some dinner-party conversation starter, this book is for you.

This is an excellent book for teens to 120 year olds. The author is exceptionally engaging the the adventures Kenneth Catania takes you on are literally electrifying! If you know someone who loves to learn about the mystifying talents of the animals of this planet and how we unlock their secrets, this is a MUST read. This author is a true GENIUS.

So much of the study of evolution focuses on changes in animal morphology over time, and a lot of attention is paid to fossils. But the most interesting, and important, adaptations are behavioral, not morphological. Little about behavior can be gleaned from fossils of extinct species, you need to study the adaptations for extant species for that. This book focuses on the remarkable adaptive behaviors of species that are all around us in the here and now. It\’s a fresh look at evolution from a behavior perspective. Catania blends memoir with science in a captivating journey that takes us through his professional career history as a biologist, and gives us a window into a fascinating animal world that few of us are able to view directly. (Even Darwin himself would be fascinated by what Catania tells us about earthworm behavior.)

My inner nerd is showing, but this book is so truly cool! It shows the world that it is okay to love biology and science your whole life, not just in high school. In fact, if you want to make your whole life be about science and weird creatures like starnosed moles or electric eels, you can! Furthermore, you don\’t have to be a nerd to do it! All the amazing life that inhabits this planet is awesome to all of us!

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