John Downer

This is a good example of the popular science books produced as an adjunct to television series during the 1980s and 1990s by leading media companies, here the BBC. These books were usually of very high production standards, and the text is authoritative, the photographs and illustrations outstanding (often pioneering for their time. This one is about the various species, from animals and plants to micro-organisms, that live with, in, and about human beings and human environments. They include both free-ranging or swmi-wild species and cultivated or domesticated ones. This is a sort of companion to the same author's 'Supersense', which describes the physical adaptations (hearing, sight, smell, etc.) that masrk many species as even superior to humans, with all their technology.… (mehr)

This is in the best genre and style of natural history books published during the 1980s and 1990s, when photographic tools and techniques were being taken to new heights, and more and more remote locations and tracts were being accessed with the camera instead of the gun. These books, many published by BBC, and generally complementary to major films and television serials, were produced to high standards of quality and durability, and written in a fairly easy, friendly style that make them such a joy even today. This one is all about the superior senses of animals, such as hearing, sight, sense of smell, orientation, and so on, used in their daily life, their mating and feeding, migration, and so on.… (mehr)