Animal Athletes: Olympians of the Wild World

by Frans Lanting, Cynthia Overbeck Bix, Diana Landau

Provides photographs and text for a variety of wild animals, including the cheetah, emperor penguin, orangutan, and chameleon

96 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 1996

Reviews

[fooleveunder · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Some people may be surprised by the idea of comparing animals to athletes. But I’ve looked at them this way for many years.”

Frans Lanting's book Animal Athletes features thirteen (13) animals that have extraordinary abilities similar to those of human athletes. Or, should I say, the other way around? As stated in this book, animals are the original professional athletes in the wild, as they have been doing it throughout their lives for survival purposes. We can safely say that human athletes are like them. The said animals are the cheetah, emperor penguin, orangutan, impala, dolphin, flying frog, African wild dog, albatross, elephant, rockhopper penguin, chameleon, leaping lemurs, and elephant seal. The content is very detailed and well-explained, accompanied by amazing photographs that support the explanation given.

Moving on to the things that I disliked is the placement of the photographs. Some extends until the very edge of the page while some have margins. Some even placed unsymmetrically which bothers me. Similar to the Bible Places Then & Now, I noticed the lack of the use of comma throughout reading the whole book. It made me reread it again and again.