Animals are truly incredible. They are the true survivors; happily inhabiting intolerably inhospitable areas where we, humans, fear to venture; let alone tread unaided by Science & Technology. They are equally at home in the scorching sands of the Sahara and in the freezing icy waters of the Arctic! They lead placid lives on the seafloor under the crushing pressure that the sea waters exert. They claim the sky effortlessly as they soar high-sometimes flying over the Everest just to reach an area with prevailing weather of their choice. In woodland dells, under rocks and in deep excavated burrows they go about their business of survival with a minimum of show. There is no environment where a representative of the Animal Kingdom cannot hold its own against human beings as Nature made them.
If it was in a watery habitat that Nature saw it fit to place them; animals evolved gills. Moving to land; they grew lungs! They produced their own luminescence to light up their dark environs. Electric eels used electricity; bats used echolocation, and dolphins used SONAR long before Man even thought of such things.
Actually, the most amazing of all creatures are low on the tree of life. Some bacteria, for example, can survive incredibly high doses radioactivity. Others can live in surroundings so acidis, alkaline or haline that these are considered hostile environments by humans. Some live inside rocks and near hydrothermal vents. These do not need the Sun or air to survive; but depend on chemicals that their environments provide so generously. Parasites successfully colonise the bodies of other organisms, sometimes synchronising their own life-cycles with that of more than two or more host species. Human beings cannot even think of being able to do such a thing.
Animals are the stars of the natural world; not human beings. However, armed with Science & Technology, human beings look down either patronisingly or with undisguised contempt at the so-called lesser life-forms. Despite being the copycats (the fragile dragonfly was the inspiration behind the helicopter!), all human beings are conditioned to regard themselves as being on top of the natural scheme of things-and in a way, perhaps we are. This is because we have technology on our side. While some animal species do use tools; no other animal uses technology so intensively, as does Mother Nature's youngest child-Homo sapiens sapiens.
However, it is when we strip human beings of the powers that Science & Technology bestows and force them to occupy the same natural habitats that animals do; that we realise how puny we, humans, really are, and how inadequate are our survival skills. Our survival largely hinges on our ability to create artificial conditions to suit our requirements. Animals, however, possess natural gifts that allow them to adapt to the environments; and hence, survive Nature even at its harshest. If for nothing else, this should merit our admiration, grudging though it be.
However, on reading this book written by a self-confessed animal lover, the reader is sure to look upon non-human creatures with a new light of deep appreciation in his eyes and to concede that animals are really amazing.
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