Publisher Description
With this fascinating book, award-winning journalist Richard Conniff satisfies your cravings for the thrill and horror of formication-that chilling sensation of something crawling across your skin. Blending humor and sophistication, he introduces you to a host of spineless creatures, from moths to leeches, and the extraordinary enthusiasts who study them. For over 20 years, the author has trekked through jungles, oceans, and deserts in search of invertebrates. Off the coast of Florida, he encounters bizarre, giant squid and the scientists who dine on the extra specimens. He chases ground spiders in the Amazon with a collector who keeps 2,000 pet tarantulas. And while covering the invasion of fire ants in Texas, he attends a festival featuring a roundup of the angry insects. Packed with anecdotes and astonishing facts, Spineless Wonders will fill you with a sense of marvel for the thousands of animals who inhabit the invertebrate world. As you hear Richard M. Davidson's dramatic narration, you will gaze on crawling creatures with new respect and appreciation instead of fear and loathing.
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About Richard Conniff
Richard Conniff writes about behavior on two, four, six, and eight legs. He has collected tarantulas in the Peruvian Amazon, tracked leopards with !Kung San hunters in the Namibian desert, climbed the Mountains of the Moon in western Uganda, and trekked through the Himalayas of Bhutan in pursuit of tigers and the mythical migur.
Conniff has been a frequent commentator on NPR and recently served as a guest columnist for The New York Times online. He has written and presented television shows for National Geographic, TBS, Animal Planet, the BBC, and Channel Four in the UK. His television work has been nominated for an Emmy Award for distinguished achievement in writing, and he won the 1998 Wildscreen Prize for Best Natural History Television Script for the BBC show Between Pacific Tides.
About the Narrators
Richard Davidson has appeared on Broadway in I Hate Hamlet, Ghetto, and The Survivor, and off-Broadway in Bedfellows and Hurrah at Last. His television and film credits include Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU, and The Hurricane.
Richard M. Davidson is an actor and Earphones Award–winning narrator. Trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, he is well versed in theater and has had a long-standing career in acting, including a lead role in the show Diamonds, which aired on the CBS network, and a part in ESPN’s The Hustle.