COMEBACK CREATURES

A gallery of animals that have defied the odds.

Opening with a quote from Carl Sagan (“Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception”), Stewart-Sharpe highlights 10 animals once wrongly thought to have vanished. Slipping in nods to dozens of other rarities along the way, the author surveys what scientists have dubbed the “Lazarus taxa”—from living fossils like the coelacanth fish and the venomous, ratlike Cuban solenodon to elusive flora and fauna that have staged “staggering comebacks.” Stewart-Sharpe indulges in a flair for the dramatic; she sets the scene with descriptions of remote habitats and headers like “A Secret on Sulawesi,” or “The Terror of New Caledonia.” Page turns then reveal the creature in question. The author surrounds Rose’s precisely detailed close-up views of each animal in its natural environs with select but enticing basic facts. Her accounts are rife with drama (stumbling on a population of horned marsupial frogs in Ecuador in 2018 “caused the scientists to leap about with excitement”); indeed, the thrill of such rediscoveries is certainly worth celebrating. And, commendably, the author readily acknowledges that many exciting finds came as no surprise at all to Indigenous residents. Stewart-Sharpe closes with references to Martha (the last passenger pigeon) and other species “endlings” and with the controversial prospect of “de-extinction” using preserved DNA, all of which expands the general topic while leaving young nature detectives with further food for thought.

Engrossing encounters with some of nature’s more elusive residents.