Magnificent and Unusual Creatures of Our World

"Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures" by Katherine Rundell.

When considering the extraordinary creatures on the planet, it may not have occurred to us to name the wombat or the hermit crab. And the golden mole? Really? But here they are, along with 20 others, in a collection of essays that read more like folk tales. Katherine Rundell’s “Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures” is the perfect guide.

An Oxford Fellow, and winner of multiple British awards for her children’s books, Rundell has combined her fascination with the animal kingdom and access to archival histories and Renaissance literature to uncover facts and folklore ascribed to these critters over the centuries. She has extensively researched their first recorded appearances in literature, noting details of quirky traits, unusual habits, and astounding capabilities. Without hitting us over the head about their endangered status, she devotes time to their underappreciated status.

Runnell explains how one of her creatures first appeared in notes made by the Roman poet Horace his “Ars Poetica.” He described it as a “hybrid monster, half camel, half leopard.” Of course, we know it as the giraffe. It makes one wonder what other reactions we humans had coming upon animals, who, like the giraffe, were “so mixed and miraculous.”  Equally puzzling is the discovery, thanks to night photography, that these gentle giants have “clusters of sleeping birds tucked into [their] armpits, keeping them warm.”

Going Giraffe-Crazy in Paris

Since we brought up the giraffe, let’s dig deeper into why Rundell included it on her list.  After a gestation of 15 months, newborn calves are dropped by their mothers from a height of about 5 feet. Once grown, they can “gallop at thirty-five miles an hour on feet the size of dinner plates.”

Giraffes became the talk of Paris in the early 1800s when an Egyptian ruler gifted one to France’s King Charles X. After a two-year journey—by boat and on foot—the animal was treated like a member of the royal family. City residents went “giraffe crazy,” with shopkeepers selling giraffe-themed items and women wearing their hair wound up like the giraffe’s horns.

Rundell provides anecdotes and evidence to show that by just being alive, the giraffe is a quandary, even a miracle. But, she says, for whatever reason, humans “tire of everything, even miracles.”

A 2020 photograph of a giraffe walking in the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. Giles Laurent/CC BY-SA 4.0

The Mighty Jumping Spider

From the tallest to one of the smallest, Rundell included the jumping spider, a creature she’s not fond of. Considered “fiercely brave,” this little creature can jump on and kill a large grasshopper which is roughly, as she writes, “equivalent to [her] leaping upon and devouring a Volvo station wagon.”

The spider has been given a raw deal over the years, she says. They’re not as deadly as believed and “are smarter than we give them credit for.”  Scientists at Manchester University recently trained one to leap on command. “Without spiders, we would perish. We should salute them with gratitude: which is not hard because, for now at least, they are everywhere.”

Seahorse Dads Who Incubate the Babies

When fishermen in Ancient Greece caught seahorses in their fishing nets, they called them “the newborn young of Poseidon’s steeds.” Moving deeper in their story, readers find that “everything about the seahorse is a stark astonishment.” The males fertilize the eggs in their own “brood pouches,” incubate the young for over a month, and then release them, shooting out sometimes over a thousand babies like a “confetti cannon.” Most of them pair up, male and female, and remain a couple forever, and their romantic dance sounds like fiction: “They circle each other. … The male twists around the female; their tails entwine.”

Since they’re easily pushed around by the sea, it’s a miracle that they survive. Although they’re a fragile bunch, their tails are strong and hook onto coral or ocean plants.

Rundell’s stance is clear. “We live in a world of such marvels. Each single seahorse contains enough wonder to knock the whole of humanity off its feet, if we would but pay attention.”

The Glowing Golden Mole

Included here are charming stories about the elephant, stork, and hedgehog and more. One after the other, readers will enjoy these short dives into why they made the list.  In the next to last chapter, we meet the amazing golden mole: most can fit in the palm of a child’s hand, yet their bodies are “miniature powerhouses,” with kidneys so efficient that many can go their entire lives without drinking a drop of water. Considering they live in the south of Africa, this adaptation is one amazing feat.

They also appear to glow, the only mammal, says Rundell, that does so.  In a curious twist of fate, they’re also blind, so they never see their own radiance.

The rare and endangered Juliana's golden mole is native to only three areas in South Africa. Craig R. Jackson/CC BY 4.0

As science continues to examine these animals and why they do the things they do, or possess the qualities they have, we may get the answers to these conundrums.  For now, in Rundell’s short essays, readers will enjoy learning the peculiarities of animals we think we know well and others we may not know at all: like how the hermit crab is not a hermit at all, but very sociable and how the wombat kicks backwards like a donkey.

Note that this is not a textbook for future wildlife biologists, but an appreciation of the critters we share this planet with them, and a call to marvel at them now for as long as we have them.

"Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures" by Katherine Rundell.

‘Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures’ By Katherine Rundell Doubleday, Nov. 12, 2024 Hardcover: 224 Pages

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