Do spiders have ears? Do rabbits fart? What is the toughest animal in the world? Can animals talk and what do they say? What is the point of a flightless bird? Animals are brilliant, aren't they? Even though we think of ourselves as the cleverest and best creatures on the planet, there are still plenty of things other species can do that we can't. Among them there are those that can move faster, dive deeper and see and hear further than we could ever hope to do. Some can even change colour, and others can paralyse us with deadly poisons.
But why do some of them seem so badly adapted? If dolphins are so clever, why haven't they learned to breathe underwater? If dinosaurs were so terrifying, why aren't there any left? And what is the point of a flightless bird? Explore all the real mysteries of the animal kingdom and find out the answers to these and an awful lot of other brilliant questions about animals in this funny and informative book from the Why is Snot Green? series, published in association with the Science Museum.
Glenn Murphy wrote his first book, Why Is Snot Green?, while working at the Science Museum, London. Since then he has written around twenty popular-science titles aimed at kids and teens, including the bestselling How Loud Can You Burp? and Space: The Whole Whizz-Bang Story. His books are read by brainy children, parents and teachers worldwide, and have been translated into Dutch, German, Spanish, Turkish, Finnish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Indonesian. Which is kind of awesome. In 2007 he moved to the United States and began writing full-time, which explains why he now says things like 'kind of awesome'. These days he lives in sunny, leafy North Carolina -- with his wife Heather, his son Sean, and two unfeasibly large felines.