Exploring a typical life-cycle from birth to death, and illustrating each individual section with unusual and remarkable stories, this book follows nature through life in a chronological format, stopping off at various landmark points to investigate how and why things happen as they do. Several widely-varying examples illustrate each spread, which focuses on one aspect of living. The courtship section, for example, is represented by the spectacular birds of paradise, chimpanzees and the bush cricket, whilst birth and the early years focuses on the nanny-like behaviour of dolphins, the family rituals of the gorilla, the gravity-defying fruit bat, and the community-based behaviour of the elephant. A cross-reference system enables topics to be followed up in depth.