Lost Wonders
10 Tales of Extinction from the 21st Century
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Shortlisted for the Richard Jefferies award for nature writing.
In Lost Wonders Tom Lathan tells ten powerful stories of species that have lived, died out and been declared extinct since the turn of the twenty-first century.
'Timely, elegiac' - The Daily Mail
'Superb storytelling . . . an exhilarating and vital book' - Charles Foster, author of Cry of the Wild
Lost Wonders is a series of fascinating encounters with subjects that are now nowhere to be found on Earth. From giant tortoises to minuscule snails the size of sesame seeds, from ocean-hopping trees to fish that wag their tails like puppies, Tom Lathan brings these lost wonders briefly back to life and gives us a tantalizing glimpse of what we have lost within our own lifetime.
Drawing on the personal recollections of the people who studied these species, as well as those who tried but ultimately failed to save them, and with beautiful illustrations, Lost Wonders is an intimate portrait of the species that have only recently vanished from our world. It is also an urgent warning to hold on all the more tightly to those now slipping from our grasp.
Illustrated by Claire Kohda
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Lathan debuts with a devastating survey of how human negligence pushed species to extinction over the past 25 years. Several stories highlight how invasive species introduced by humans exterminated native inhabitants, as when Lathan recounts how in 1967, a French border guard homesick for snail soup while posted in Polynesia imported a batch of voracious giant African land snails that devoured the islands' last indigenous Partula faba tree snail by 2016. Describing conservationists' anguished attempts to save each species, Lathan notes how ecologist Rich Switzer barely slept as he monitored the last living po‘ouli bird, which spent its final days with an IV drip attached to its leg before succumbing to malaria that first arrived in Maui with mosquito stowaways on a 19th-century ship. There's no shortage of tear-jerking moments, as when Lathan notes the eerie scene as researchers attempting to catch the last known pipistrelle (a moth-size bat that fell prey to habitat destruction) listened as it fell silent for the last time. Tales of how the Catarina pupfish, Pinta Island tortoise, and Christmas Island forest skink went extinct decry human callousness while demanding better protection for extant endangered species. This moving elegy will stick with readers long after the final page. Illus.
