Why Big Fierce Animals Are Rare

242 Pages·1980·8.506 MB·English

by  Paul Colinvaux

W hy B ig F ierce
A n im als A re R are
Paul C olinvaux
P enguin S cience
Why areb ig fierce animals rare?
Why do birds sing in the morning ?
Why is the sea blue?
What accounts for the immense variety
of plant and animal species ?
A zoologist takes an entertaining look at
the world around him, pondering the answers
provided by scientific research and describing
nature in a way that will lead the curious
to observe their surroundings with fresh eyes.
Written in a clear, graceful style, each chapter
explores a separate theme, usually beginning
with a paradox that arose in the literature
of a generation or so ago and ending with a report
on the current state of our knowledge.
Whether he discusses the groups into which
animals fall by size, the reasons why oceans harbour
tiny plants, or the behaviour of the wolf spider,
Paul Colinvaux brings to his subject both
profound knowledge and an enthusiasm that will
encourage a greater understanding of our
environment and of the efforts of those
who seek to preserve it.
*A vivid picture of how the natural world works...
an excellent and very readable book*
-v * —Nature
Cover illustration by Carolyn Scrace
PENGUIN ISBN 0-14-013565-0
Science
Nature
U.K. £7.99
AUST. $16.95
(recommended) 780140 135657
PENGUIN BOOKS
WHY BIG FIERCE ANIMALS ARE RARE
Paul Colinvaux was educated at University College School in
Hampstead, Jesus College, Cambridge, and Duke University,
North Carolina. He is now a Senior Scientist and Professor at the
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, and has previ­
ously worked at the Ohio State University, Yale University,
Queen’s University in Belfast, the University of Washington and
Oxford University. Colinvaux’s researches into the environment of
the last ice age have let him hunt for ancient lakes in both Arctic
and Equatorial latitudes, his current work being in the Amazon
basin, Panama, Arctic Russia, and Siberia. He also dives on coral
reefs as field assistant to his scientist wife, Dr Llewellya Hillis. His
hobbies are rowing, woodworking, writing and exploring. His
other books are Introduction to Ecology (1973), The Fates of Nat­
ions (1980) and Ecology 2 (1993).

Paul Colinvaux
Why Big Fierce
Animals Are Rare
§
Penguin Books
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England
Penguin Books USA Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2
Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England
First published by George Allen & Unwin 1980
Published in Pelican Books 1980
Reprinted in Penguin Books 1990
3579 10 864
Copyright © Paul Colinvaux, 1980
All rights reserved
Printed in England by Clays Ltd, St Ives pic
Set in Monotype Times
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject
to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,
re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s
prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in
which it is published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
Contents
Preface page ix
Prelude 1
1 The Science That Reasons Why 3
2 Every Species Has Its Niche 8
3 Why Big Fierce Animals Are Rare 15
4 The Efficiency of Life 28
5 The Nation States of Trees 41
6 The Social Lives of Plants 55
7 Cycles: A Lesson from Farming 65
8 Why the Sea Is Blue 72
9 The Ocean System 79
10 The Regulation of the Air 86
11 The Curious Incident of the
Lake in the Now Time 96
12 The Succession Affair 104
13 Peaceful Coexistence 120
14 What Hunting Animals Do 133
15 The Social Imperatives of Space 144
16 Why There Are So Many Species 162
17 The Stability in Nature 176
18 The People’s Place 187
Postlude 206
Ecological Reading 210
Index 217

Preface
Ecology is not the science of pollution, nor is it environmental
science. Still less is it a science of doom. There is, however, an
overwhelming mass of writings claiming that ecology is all of these
things. I wrote this book in some anger to retort to this literature
with an account of what one practising ecologist thinks his subject
is really about. I feel fervour for the elegance of the Darwinian
explanations we find for natural phenomena. I take the opportun­
ity to brand as nonsense tales of destroying the atmosphere,
killing lakes and hazarding the world by making it simple.
I wrote a textbook before I wrote this. With the textbook in
press, I spent a quiet year as a Guggenheim Fellow thinking out
the social implications of ecological knowledge. Then I wrote a
series of articles for the Yale Review (© Yale University), cul­
minating in a paper describing an ecological model of human
history. The pedigree of this book, therefore, is: out of text; by
Guggenheim and the Yale Review. To the Guggenheim Founda­
tion and the editor of the Yale Review, I give thanks.
My own research has been on communities of the past and the
history of climatic change as it can be reconstructed from fossils in
the mud of ancient lakes. I have inquired into the way of life of the
First Americans on the ancient plainsland now drowned under the
Bering Sea and into the environmental history of the Galapagos
Archipelago. Most other subjects I report at second hand, though
by now many of my summaries have been through the reviewing
process of a text in use for several years. This manuscript was
reviewed by Dr R. H. Whittaker and Dr H. Horn. It would be hard
to find two other reviewers who could point out one’s errors so
nicely without wounding one’s feelings. My gratitude to them
both. Where I still err it is probably because I was wilful in the face
of their advice.
To keep my prose as uncluttered as possible I have refrained
from references and footnotes. All the main studies and argu­
ments I describe, however, have their sources given in the section
Preface
at the end called “ecological reading.” Most can also be found
written up in the half-dozen texts I cite in that section.
I recently had the pleasant task of reading into a tape-recorder
from Darwin’s autobiography, acting the voice of Darwin for a
colleague’s production. As I was captured by the part, I could feel
the thoughts of that greatest of all ecologists in the room. It is in
Darwin’s writings that one finds the true roots of ecology. Darwin
did not write of pollution and crisis but of how the world worked;
of coral reefs and species; of expressing emotions; of fertilising
orchids and natural selection. Ecologists still ponder these things,
and in Darwin’s way.
Columbus, Ohio PAUL COLINVAUX