The Rarest of the Rare: Vanishing Animals, Timeless Worlds

by Diane Ackerman

Ackerman journeys in search of monarch butterflies and short-tailed albatrosses, monk seals and golden lion tamarin monkeys: the world's rarest creatures and their vanishing habitats. She delivers a rapturous celebration of other species that is also a warning to our own. Traveling from the Amazon rain forest to a forbidding island off the coast of Japan, enduring everything from broken ribs to a beating by an irate seal, Ackerman reveals her subjects in all their splendid particularity. She shows us how they feed, mate, and migrate. She eavesdrops on their class and courtship dances. She pays tribute to the men and women hwo have deoted their lives to saving them.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Nature, Animals, Natural History, Biology, Environment

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Diane Ackerman has been the finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction in addition to many other awards and recognitions for her work, which include the bestsellers The Zookeeper’s Wife and A Natural History of the Senses.

The Zookeeper’s Wife, a little known true story of WWII, became a New York Times bestseller, and received the Orion Book Award, which honored it as, "a groundbreaking work of nonfiction." A movie of The Zookeeper’s Wife, starring Jessica Chastain and Daniel Brühl, releases in theaters March 31st, 2017 from Focus Features.

She lives with her husband Paul West in Ithaca, New York.

Reviews

[Ross · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the second Ackerman book I've tried, and the second I've put down after less than fifty pages. I only tried again because of my interest in the book's topic, endangered and extinct fauna. Fool me twice, shame on me.

On the plus side, this book did reaffirm why I dislik her writing style: overuse of metaphor. Instead of judiciously sprinkling metaphors where needed to better explain a concept or to draw a pleasing parallel, Ackerman seems to work towards a quota. Two or three per sentence, minimum. And if that requires fifty-word sentences, so be it. It may prove that she's clever, but it makes for bloodless prose with zero narrative momentum.

For a much better read on the same topic, check out Douglas Adam's non-fiction Last Chance to See.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Diane Ackerman's writing for the same reason I love Annie Dillard; both have excellent science backgrounds, and both write like philosopher/poets.

If you don't have time to read the whole book, the introduction itself is a small gem. I had to smile when she talks about pulling out The Home Planet, which is one of my favorite books of photographs of earth taken from space. As she looks through the book, she says, "the book contains visual mnemonics of how I feel about nature...From the deserts of Namibia to the razor-backed Himalayas, there are wonderful creatures that have roamed Earth much longer than we, creatures that not only are worthy of our respect but could teach us about ourselves....In a sense, we are a virus that has swept over the world, changing and devouring it. Whether or not we are a plague remains to be seen."

She proceeds to visit and spend time with monk seals, the creatures of the Amazon, the short-tailed albatross (in 1982 there were only 10 left, up to 400 today thanks to Japan), the golden lion tamarin, the monarch, and a final chapter called "Insect Lore". In that chapter, I was mesmerized by her description of the six by ten foot spiderweb, woven by the fawn-colored wolf spider and taken down each morning to be rewoven in the evening.

The abundance of detail in this book is sometimes overwhelming; I read one chapter at a time(much as I do Dillard) so as not to lose the incredible threads of connection which Ackerman feels to these rare creatures.

What came to my mind were Henry Beston's words from The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod. He said, of our fellow creatures, "In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth."

Ackerman's willingness to endure mud and muck, rain and discomfort--all are tributes to how much these creatures matter to her. We should listen to her message.

[Preeti · Rating 5 out of 5]

So after reading The Zookeeper's Wife, I wanted to see what else Diane Ackerman had out there. Of course I was happy to learn that she loves animals and has written a few books about her adventures. I was able to find this at my library. Though it took me a while to get through (summer is always busy!) I finally finished and I really liked it. I do like Ackerman's writing - it can be so lyrical and thoughtful, though at times it was a bit too sappy for me. I would give it 4.5 out of 5 stars but I rounded up since Goodreads doesn't do half stars.

I love how in love she is with the animals and how she shares their stories with the reader. My favorites were probably the monk seals, short-tailed albatross and the Amazon. I didn't think I'd enjoy the butterfly and insects chapters much, but I actually did. One thing I really wanted to see (and I think some other reviewers have mentioned this as well) is some photographs. She does weave a great picture with her words, but as a photographer myself, I did feel that was a missing piece.

Now I really want to get my hands on The Moon by Whale Light.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rarest of the Rare.

Books are windows on the world. I rely on writers like Diane Ackerman to take me places that I perhaps will never get to go. Ackerman is a poet that likes to explore, as she writes in “Rarest of the Rare,” another collection of her adventures in faraway places.

“In the rain forest, no niche lies unused. No emptiness goes unfilled. No gasp of sunlight goes untrapped. In a million vest pockets, a million life-forms quietly tick. No other place on earth feels so lush. Sometimes we picture it as an echo of the original Garden of Eden—a realm ancient, serene, and fertile, where pythons slither and jaguars lope. But it is mainly a world of cunning and savage trees. Truant plants will not survive. The meek inherit nothing. Light is a thick yellow vitamin they would kill for, and they do. One of the first truths one learns in the rain forest is that there is nothing fainthearted or wimpy about plants.”

Great read for someone who cannot afford the price of an airline ticket.

[Lulu Cares · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read!
Thank you Diane Ackerman

[Carol Wrenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Humpback whales have had a civilization without cities, a kind of roaming culture, for many ages. They live in the ocean as in a wide blue cave. They pass on an oral tradition, teach one another songs, abandon old versions, use rhyme. Our recordings of them go back only to 1951, but after more than forty years, the whales haven't returned to their original songs of the fifties. Just imagine the arias, ballads and cantata of ancient days that have filled the ocean with song, then died out, never to be heard again.

But people who cherish life on earth as it is now should be worried. The vanishing of so many other animals may indicate that we're not so far from the brink ourselves. If we'd like our species to hang around for awhile, we must be vigilant about what we're doing to other species, because evolution is a set of handshakes, not a list of winners.

The horse isn't the thing that evolved. What evolved actually was a relationship between horse and grass. Thus the unit of what's called evolution out there is really not this species or that species. It is an entire interlocking business of species.
Gregory Bateson

As Paul Erlich said, losing a species is like popping rivets on a plane's wing. You can pop an awful lot of rivets on a wing and probably the lane will not go down. But no engineer would want to be on that plane, popping rivets to see how many it took to make the plane go down.

There is a deep down kinship among all living things, not just spirituality or morally, or through some accident of our being neighbors, but physically, functionally, in our habits, in our hungers, in our genes.

It is possible that we may also become extinct, and if we do, we will not be the only species that sabotaged itself, merely the only one who could have prevented it.

Monk seals

Objects left in the ocean lose their hard edges and are broken up into formlessness. They become more like the ocean itself. In time, all things placed in the sea become the sea.

Although we call our planet Earth, it's mainly water. We should call it Ocean.

And yet we are also drawn to the ocean; we like to vacation beside it, staying for countless hours at its hypnotic pour and sweep. It's both mesmerizing and narcotic. An impulse ancient and osmotic connects our fluids with the ocean's. I suppose we feel drawn to it because we ourselves are small marine environments on the move.

In the Amazon

In the back of the skull, a small perfect bullet hole leads from one world to another.

What a perfect getaway: hurl yourself straight into another dimension of reality, as flying fish do, and suddenly appear elsewhere and elsewhen.

How old is that tree? I wonder. It is hard to tell the age of a jungle tree because they don't lay down one ring a year. This is not a temperate forest, where sunlight is plentiful, the loam thick and rich, and predictable trees have predictable needs.

Species are going extinct in the rain forest that have not even been named yet.

Short-tail Albatross

"Why are they always thought to be fool birds?" I ask him. Gooneybirds they're sometimes called in English.
"I think perhaps because of how they sometimes look when they land. But maybe also because they were fools not to fly away when humans came with...." He holds an invisible baseball bat in his two hands. "The men murdered one ahodori, another, and another, and the rest of the birds didn't understand what was happening, they didn't fly away. Their killers thought: what fools these birds are, they're so easy to kill.

.....if you took any of us five miles from land and threw us overboard, probably none of us would make it to shore. And yet you can take a seabird that has a brain the size of a pea, take it a thousand miles from land, and it will not only survive, it will return to its original nesting site.

Amazing as it sounds, they can fly for four or five years without ever returning to land. Rough weather is an albatross' delight. It can even catnap while it flies. Because it has a small wind-speed recorder in its bill, it can doze while its brain goes on autopilot; a sudden gust of wind will send the signal to draw the wings in or stretch them out.

Some young birds that had left the island, escaping both the bludgeoning by the feather hunters and the volcanic eruptions, were the progenitors of all the birds we see today.

In 1932, fowlers had reduced the number of birds from a workable breeding stock of about two thousand to only thirty to fifty individuals.

Golden Lion Tamarins

What many people don't realize is that in the rain forest, most of the nutrients are in the trees, not the soil, and there are no extras, no backups. As soon as something dies, it returns immediately into the living system by rotting. It doesn't linger in the soil, or become the soil, as in temperate regions. Either the rains wash it away, or mycorrhizal fungi convert it at once and it returns to the trees. The living tumult of insects helps, too. But there is no use trying to farm the land, or graze cattle on it. Because the richness lines only in the trees, if the trees vanish, the whole ecosystem will collapse.

Circumstances don't always allow genetic mixing to take place. This is especially the case among zoo populations, where animals can become too closely related and lose the variety needed for a strong immune system. Some wild animals - the cheetah is perhaps the best known and saddest case - are so inbred that extinction is almost certain. Because the world's cheetahs have identical DNA, they're essentially clones of one another. To thrive, a species must be larger than any one individual, but with the cheetahs each individual is the whole species. Any virus that can kill one of them can kill all of them. Because wild golden lion tamarins are developing a similar problem, zoos mate them carefully and even use birth control in some groups to ensure a strong bloodline.

Monarch butterflies

A hundred million monarchs migrate each year. Gliding, flapping, hitching rides on thermals like any hawk or eagle, they fly as far as four thousand miles and as high as two thousand feet, rivaling the great animal migrations of Africa, the flocking of birds across North America. They need only water and nectar to thrive, but they are sensitive to cold and must spend the winter somewhere warm or die. They tend to choose the same, sometimes less than ideal sites, many of which are disappearing.

...feeds only on milkweed, which contains a heart stopping poison favored by assassins in ancient Rome. In turn, the butterfly's body will carry enough poison to sicken a hungry bird.

Though many butterflies live only one day, overwintering monarchs love six to nine months.

Insects

...communicate chemically, they defend themselves chemically - they are magnificent chemical factories.

Insects aerate the soil, clean up decay, help in pollination, produce food for us like honey, and teach us about genetics and chemistry.

[Klaudia Kikiopia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the chapter on Albatrosses. I had no idea…

“Albatrosses do nest, preferring out-of-the-way places, but they spend most of their lives on the wing, wandering the world’s oceans. Nomadic, ever-moving, full of the wind's eloquence and swing, they are creatures bound inextricably to the sea. Amazing as it sounds, they can fly for four of five years(!!!!) without ever returning to land. In low winds, they stretch their wings out full like canvas sails. In high winds, they partly fold their wings and hold them in at an angle to decrease the sail area. Rough weather is an albatross's delight. It can even catnap while it flies (!!!). Because it has a small wind-speed recorder in its bill, it can doze (!) while its brain goes on autopilot; a sudden gust of wind will send a quick signal to draw the wings in or stretch them out. In fact, an albatross has been known to hit the side of a boat while asleep. But when they do return to land, they use its green stage for all it's worth. Their courtship involves long, elaborate, Oriental-looking dances, full of kissing and caressing and posing like Kabuki dancers, and symphonic mating calls, which echo from the hillsides where they nest. Observers become enchanted with their beauty and their customs. Their Latin names reflect the majesty and romance people have found in them, translating into such marvels as "pale-backed moon goddess."

Oh my goddess. What a good read!

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my first encounter with Ackerman, a nature writer that I've heard much about. I think I bought this book in a library sale many, many years ago and finally read it for Book Riot's Read Harder challenge this year. Ackerman travels the world, visiting with endangered species - monk seals, golden lion tamarins, albatrosses (I can't remember which specific species) - and the people who are working to study and save these species. She really only provides glimpses into this, and this book is many years old now, so it would have been nice to read an updated edition that checks in with these species now. I ended up Googling for answers, hopeful that they'd all made recoveries. A lovely little book.

[Virginia · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author gives us vignettes of excursions she took to observe endangered wildlife. She provides us with colorful word paintings of the sights, sounds, and scents of creatures and their environments. There are factoids to help us understand the ebb and flow of this web of life. There are other books that offer more concrete science; this book is more about inspiring interest in biodiversity.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ackerman has a lovely personal way of writing about the wonders of the world. She calls herself a nature ecstatic and that description is perfect! Not all essays in this collection are equally interesting but I enjoyed the language throughout.

[Margo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic Ackerman. Beautifully rendered portraits of creatures and habitats you didn't know you cared about until you opened this book. Now you'll never forget them.

[Joseph Thomas · Rating 1 out of 5]

She says very little about the subjects and a lot about her experiences.

[Sj · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book Ackerman has a great writing style and captures the scientists busy with trying to save rare species.

[Lance Grabmiller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating book in an elegant prose that sometimes runs away with itself. You get the sense that the imagination runs away with itself here too (is she really one of only three people ever to witness the monk seal mating, conveniently with no one else around to witness it?).

[Leah Rich · Rating 4 out of 5]

beautifully written, diverse, fun adventures.

[Lisa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Purple prose. Purple, like when Jason Stackhouse took too much V and his you-know-what swelled up like an eggplant. Purple, like Barney. I needed to read no further than the introduction, where, excuse me if I'm on crack, but the author calls an airplane a "steel mastodon". Are airplanes extinct but resembled elephants? Do they have big wavy tusks? I don't get it.
Her over-written, flowery, and corny prose flat-out drowns, suffocates, and obliterates any insights or interesting facts that just might be buried in this book. Here's another example, and you won't need another one: "Sometimes the filthier, hungrier, sorer, and more weather-beaten I get, the more I feel a deep-down child-of-the-earth radiance". I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

[Carl Rollyson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Diane Ackerman, working once again as a kind of poet of the
natural world, chronicles her interactions with and meditations
on a series of endangered species and habitats.Diane She has
a gift for describing natural phenomena
in a manner, at once direct and lyrical, that allows readers to
participate with her in her adventures in spheres both familiar
and strange. In THE RAREST OF THE RARE, her focus shifts from
the exotic short-tailed albatrosses, golden lion tamarinds
to the well-known monarch butterflies, fireflies--but in
each instance her intent is to bring attention to bear on the
need to preserve biodiversity. Far from being didactic, the book
reads almost like a story cycle in which each creature's destiny
is linked to the others.

[Bendick Ong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ackerman did it again! This is the second book I'd read written by her. My first, the moon by whale light, was the most heartening read, which caused me to want to read more of her fabulous stories - each being an adventure of its own.

The stories about amazon fishes and insects are not that impressive, the ones on monk seals and tamarins are more engaging, but I love the writings on short-tailed albatrosses and monarch butterflies most. Their migration across oceans and continents is the most inspiring. The resilence and single-heartedness of God's minutest creation dwarf easily the greatest of man's achievement.

[Mads · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have a theory that each writer has a place somewhere in the world that will make him bloom artistically if he can find that place. Just as 1930s Paris ignited Henry Miller, the Amazon fired up the imagination of Diane Ackerman (not that she wasn't an accomplished writer before traveling there). In "In the Amazon, Where the Sun Dines," one of the reportage pieces here, Ackerman's rich prose is well-matched by the fecundity she sees around her. She wrote, "There was so much life at every level that my senses felt almost bruised from the overload."

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I almost put this one down after only 5 pages being read, and I don't regret my choice to have continued until the end. Ackerman is very inspiring to animal and nature lovers alike and she makes one want to go off on a wild goose chase trying to find and study some rare endangered animal so that you might tell their story to the ignorant masses. I'm well aware of many species disappearing from our planet but was surprised by her choices of animals to persue, having no idea how beautiful, important and endangered these particular creatures are. A fascinating read!

[Geof Huth]

Took me just under 8 months to read this book only while I was microwaving my lunch on those few times I'm at the office and eating lunch. (NB: reading occurred only during microwaving, not during the eating of the lunch, except for today, when I decided to finish reading the last page's worth of the book at the beginning of lunch.) Not sure if I'll try to do this with another book or not.

An interesting book on rare and extinct-leaning animals, but it loses much of its power as it goes on. The earlier chapter are the better ones.

[Megan O'keefe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diane Ackerman is absolutely a new favorite author of mine. I am currently reading two of her other books. The Rarest of the Rare was the first book of Ackerman's that I read after she was recommended to me by a friend. She doesn't simply write about her life experiences, she truly describes and uses language that makes you feel like you were there or like you want to be there. I found myself re-reading passages several times as well as reading them to other people. Fantastic book!

[Maggie Jaicomo · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book. Diane Ackerman seems like such an interesting lady with lots of experiences to share. But the one thing I just couldn't get over was how hard it felt like she was trying to be poetic. Well I enjoy prose and I believe it adds to the reading experience, not every single object needs that much description and some of the analogies were just plain bad.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to admit that my favorite part of this book was the introduction. Based on that, I thought I was going to love the book. I became bored with the rest of the book, though, to the point that I actually started skipping pages, which is something I never do. There's something about Diane Ackerman's writing style that I just don't care for.

[Erica Ferencik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Diane Ackerman, just by her writing, has done this planet a great favor. The more people read her work and identify with her passion for the wonders of the natural world, the better chance we all have of surviving our own self destruction.

[Debra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I admire Diane Ackerman's writing- both her subjects and her skill at creating word paintings. (Apparently people either love or hate her style.) In this 1995 book she examines vanishing species and fragile ecosystems. Fascinating.

[Hannah Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting little book that gave off some ways of nature that are among the rarest events and species that I didn't know about until now. If you're interested in nature itself and beauty, this something you would find fascinating

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ackerman writes non-fiction in a way that's beautiful but still understood. This book was wonderful. It made me want to visit the Amazon and also visit with monk seals and tamarins. A quick, easy, engaging, fascinating read.

[Lauren]

Love Ackerman's work

[Deborah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely transcendent. Possibly the most poetic science writing ever committed to the page. LOVED it.