Why pandas do handstands [antikvár]

ForewordGenerations ago, even the cleverest people used to dismiss animals as dull, uninteresting creaturesat least compared to us humans.Mark Twain, for instance, argued that "man is the only animal that blushes, or needs to" while D. H. Lawrence called man "the only animal in the world to fear." G. K. Chesterton, glass in hand no doubt, wrote that "no animal ever invented anything so bad as drunkennessor as good as drink."He would have needed a stiff whiskey if he knew how wrong they all had been.Mr. Chesterton had clearly not encountered a Scandinavian elk, blind drunk on fermented apples, or witnessed the carnage caused when a flock of berry-addled birds fly into the side of a glass tower. Nor, obviously, had Mr. Twain witnessed a sexually aroused male ostrich, its long neck burning a vivid scarlet. If he had, he would have turned bright red himself.And Mr. Lawrence had obviously never been stung by the awesome Australian box jellyfish. If he had, he would have spent a week suffering from the hideous Irukandji syndrome, a combination of nausea, high blood pressure, and manic depression that can reduce a man to, well, a quivering jelly. If he had, he would have feared animals forever.xiii