"Funny, thoughtful, informative, and wise" (Publishers Weekly, starred review), this scientific foray into the animal kingdom examines how the world's creatures--weird, wonderful, and everything in between--are inextricably linked.

Life on planet earth is not weirder than we imagine. It's weirder than we are capable of imagining. And we're all in it together: humans, blue whales, rats, birds of paradise, beetles, mollusks the size of buses, gladiator slugs, bdelloid rotifers that haven't had sex for millions of years, and water bears--creatures that can be boiled, frozen, and fired...