The Life of Fish: Nature's Ultimate Survivors (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781764666312)

The Life of Fish: Nature's Ultimate Survivors, is an immersive dive into the natural history of the largest and most diverse group of all back-boned animals.

Taking seven years to create, and fully edited to bring it up to date with the scientific discoveries of the last nine years, The Life of Fish is vast in scope, venturing 5km above sea-level and descending 10km below and everywhere in-between in search of some of the most curious, surprising and adaptable of all animals. In this latest edition it uses more than 150 images from across the world to bring this remarkable story to life, including from places as diverse as Papua New Guinea, Japan, Sweden, South Africa, Canada, New Zealand, Kazakhstan, India, Peru, Spain, New York, Bali, Australia, the deep sea and even Antarctica.

It is a world beyond our expectations; tender fathers that give up eating while on babysitting duties, adventurous survivalists that endure droughts by climbing trees and moving into termite nests, skilled athletes capable of swimming a distance of ten thousand kilometers in just five months.

We will follow the story of fish right back to the evolution of the very first backboned creatures- alien like swimmers enclosed in balls of mucus that don't even have fins, faces or even a heart. We'll continue past prehistoric giants, jawless fish, sharks and rays, dragonfish, eels and salmon, catfish and piranha, graceful seahorses, sex-changing clown fish and venomous pufferfish. It is a journey that will travel to the deepest fish yet discovered and then finally follows the venture of fish into the most extreme environments, including ultimately the first backboned animals to leave the water permanently.

This is a story of the unexpected, the adaptable, the unique, and the survivors. Even the humble goldfish is proving to be so much more than it first appears.