![]() Ranging from the astonishingly powerful armored rear-ends of wombats (and their cube-shaped feces) to cockroach milk, fly/mammal parallels, the extinction of the thylacine, the ethics of collecting past and present, and much more, Ashby and McAlister’s discussion of Platypus Matters and beyond is not to be missed. UChicago Press recently had the joy of hosting Jack Ashby in a wide-ranging conversation with Erica McAlister-senior curator of flies at the Natural History Museum, London former president of the Amateur Entomologists’ Society Honorary Fellow of the Royal Entomology Society radio presenter Twitter doyenne and the author of The Secret Life of Flies, The Inside Out of Flies, and A Bug’s World. Written with humor, deep knowledge, and affection, this celebration of Australian wildlife will open eyes and change minds about how we contemplate and interact with the natural world-everywhere. ![]() Through it all, Ashby reveals how both the lasting legacy of our historical perceptions and the massive habitat loss resulting from climate change pose serious challenges to these species’ conservation. ![]() He introduces readers to the animals’ unusual traits and entertains with stories of his experiences in the field finding them. In this book, Jack Ashby-museum curator, zoologist, and creator of the delightful neologism for baby platypuses, “platypup”-aims to repair the platypus’s reputation by honoring these and other Australian mammals, including the possum, echidna, devil, and kangaroo. That gave the platypus the distinction of being a so-called primitive mammal, an assessment reinforced by colonialist views of Australia. A venomous, egg-laying “monotreme” (meaning it has one opening for its reproductive system and expelling waste) served as a kind of missing link in mammal evolution. And as the nineteenth-century understanding of living platypuses grew, these animals became the focus of a dispute about the nature of evolution. When a platypus first appeared in British scientific society, some were certain it was taxidermic trickery-with a duck’s bill and feet and a mole’s body. Important, timely, and written with humor and wisdom by a scientist and self-described platypus nerd, this celebration of Australian wildlife will open eyes and change minds about how we contemplate and interact with the natural world-everywhere.Scientifically informed and funny, Platypus Matters: The Extraordinary Story of Australian Mammals is a firsthand account of some of Australia’s most wonderfully unique animals-and how our perceptions impact their futures. Ashby makes clear that calling these animals "weird" or "primitive"-or incorrectly implying that Australia is an "evolutionary backwater," a perception that can be traced back to the country's colonial history-has undermined conservation: Australia now has the worst mammal extinction rate of any place on Earth. Informed by his own experiences meeting living marsupials and egg-laying mammals during fieldwork in Tasmania and mainland Australia, as well as his work with thousands of zoological specimens collected for museums over the last two-hundred-plus years, Ashby's tale not only explains historical mysteries and debunks myths (especially about the platypus), but also reveals the toll these myths can take. In Platypus Matters, naturalist Jack Ashby shares his love for these often-misunderstood animals. But how does the world regard these creatures? And what does that mean for their conservation? Jack Ashby is the assistant director of the University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge, and the author of Platypus Matters: The Extraordinary Story of Australian Mammals (2022), which explores their amazing biology, their surprising role in the history of the world today, and why it matters how we talk about them. And what about antechinuses-tiny marsupial carnivores whose males don't see their first birthday, as their frenzied sex lives take so much energy that their immune systems fail? Platypuses, possums, wombats, echidnas, devils, kangaroos, quolls, dibblers, dunnarts, kowaris: Australia has some truly astonishing mammals, with incredible, unfamiliar features. Or a wombat: Their teeth never stop growing, they poop cubes, and they defend themselves with reinforced rears. Think of a platypus: They lay eggs (that hatch into so-called platypups), produce milk without nipples and venom without fangs, and can detect electricity. ![]() Scientifically informed and funny, a firsthand account of Australia's wonderfully unique mammals-and how our perceptions impact their future. Print Platypus Matters - The Extraordinary Story of Australian Mammals (HB) Ashby's new book, 'Platypus Matters: The Extraordinary Story of Australian Mammals,' is published in the UK on 12 May, 2022 by HarperCollins.
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