Great Adaptations: Star-Nosed Moles, Electric Eels, and Other Tales of Evolution’s Mysteries Solved

by Kenneth Catania

This book showcases some strange creatures with unusual capacities. The "star" of the show is the star-nosed mole, with its nose containing some 25,000 touch-sensitive nerve organs and the ability to gobble small invertebrate prey in world record-breaking time. The mole was author's first real biological assignment; his "strange path of discovery" is brilliantly documented, from figuring how to find and capture his elusive subject to eventually mapping its brain.

He also studies tentacled snakes that deploy some devilish hunting strategies, worms that leave the ground in response to "grunts," eels that paralyze their prey with Taser-like jolts, bloodthirsty water shrews, and zombie-making wasps. The author's witty style and amazing findings are complemented by stunning photography and movie shorts that readers with smart phones can scan and play. The astonishing animals are only half the story. Just as compelling is the enquiring-human side--i.e., seeing a scientist at work (and at play), applying a Sherlockian credo

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Nature, Biology, Animals, Evolution, Audiobook

224 pages, Hardcover

First published September 15, 2020

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed the content of the book quite a bit. The author has an easy way of approaching some very technical subjects & never bogs down. While there is some technical jargon, he explains it all well. The way experiments were set up was very interesting as were some of the results, especially the unexpected ones. Best of all, he conveys the sense of wonder of the true scientist.

That said, I really didn't like the narrator, Chris Sorenson. Possibly a personal problem, I found the voice close to fingernails on a chalkboard & the tone was all wrong. Often statements ended with a raised pitch at the end indicating a query. Still, it was fairly short & the subject matter was fascinating enough to keep me hooked.

THE ENIGMA OF THE STAR - is his investigation into what the tentacles do on the nose of the star-nosed mole. What do they sense? It led to all sorts of fascinating discoveries about their hunting habits & I loved his descriptions of capturing specimens.
PASTEUR WAS RIGHT - continuing the previous chapter

THE STING - tentacled snakes make their prey's instinctive response work against them, herding them right into their mouths.

THE MYSTERY OF WORM GRUNTING - I've heard of this, but never knew much about it. There's a full description that's fascinating. Why does it work? The explanation is great. Makes a lot of sense, but figuring it out was scientific inquiry of the finest kind. It also led to experiments on the common mole which showed it uses smell in stereo. Wow!

TINY T-REX - is about shrews. Fascinating stuff. I knew there was a red-toothed shrew, but I didn't realize the red was because they have iron caps at the end of their teeth. Seriously mean little beasties & it is good they're small. With their high metabolism, they have to eat a LOT & that means most anything. Catania references Theodore Roosevelt's observations of them which I vaguely remembered. He also references "The Killer Shrews" (1959) for their depiction of them. Compared to the rest of the movie, they got a lot right about shrews. In the movie, the island is overrun by a couple of hundred that are the size of dogs which worked out since the special effects were obviously some old wigs glued on to dogs. It's a pretty bad movie. I think it makes some of the Top 100 Worst lists, but I watched it again. The original is available on the Internet Archive, although TubiTV has the colorized version here:
https://tubitv.com/movies/571725/the-...

YOU HAD ME AT 500 VOLTS - covers electric eels & their electric sense.

THE ART OF MAKING A ZOMBIE - is about the jewel wasp & how she turns a cockroach into a docile larder for her young. Very detailed description which was excellent.

EPILOGUE - He makes it clear that science has a lot to learn. Every discovery seems to just lead to more questions & he loves it. He also reiterates that not all of his experiments worked & some didn't even start out as experiments. He mentions Dawkins' An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist. Clearly, he's a fan as am I. He has a lot more patience, though. I've never managed to out wait a mole.

Highly recommended, but listen to a clip first if you're thinking of the audio edition.

[Betsy · Rating 5 out of 5]

[27 Apr 2024]
This was a delightful, short book about some of the strangest creatures that inhabit Earth. The star-nosed mole, the water shrew, worm grunting, tentacled snakes, electric eels, and the zombie making emerald jeweled wasp, are some of the mysteries that the author has investigated. Determined to find out how and why these animals developed such unusual characteristics and behaviors, he uses all of his curiosity and creativity, and not a little serendipity to find the answers.

The author writes well, with humor and humility, he gives the reader a good taste of how science works. The curiosity, the idea, the determination, the planning, the experiments, the failures, and the successes. And he makes it sound fun. I suspect that he is an excellent teacher.

The book is short and an easy read. There is nothing that a lay reader would have trouble understanding. It also includes a device that I haven't seen used in any other book. There are a number of QR codes, which link to YouTube videos that illustrate the strange behaviors that he describes and the experiments he devises to understand them. It really added to the book, bringing it to even greater life.

Strongly recommended.

[aPriL does feral sometimes · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Great Adaptations: Star-Nosed Moles, Electric Eels, and Other Tales of Evolution’s Mysteries’ by Kenneth Catania is an extremely fun science book! I highly recommend it to anyone interested in science, especially the general reader. Not only is Catania a high-end, respected scientist (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth...)

Quote from Wikipedia:

“Catania was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2006 and in 2013 he received the Pradel Research Award in Neurosciences from the National Academy of Sciences for "highly imaginative investigations of the neural basis of sensory behavior in model organisms" and "discoveries of fundamental principles of behavior, sensory processing, and brain organization".

In addition to his scientific publications, his work has also been featured in magazines such as Scientific American, Natural History Magazine, and The Scientist. His discovery of a "mechanism similar to a taser" in an electric eel by absorbing the shock through his fingertips was widely covered in the popular press.”

Notable awards
2014 Guggenheim Fellowship
2013 Pradel Award in Neuroscience, National Academy of Sciences
2006 MacArthur Award
2005 C. J. Herrick Award in Neuroanatomy
2003 National Science Foundation Career Award
2001 Searle Scholar Award
1998 Capranica Foundation Award in Neuroethology


Catania showed an interest in the wildlife of the woods near his home in Columbia, Maryland when he was ten years old. His father is a psychology professor who specialized in learning, including the behavior of animals. One day his father met Dr. Edwin Gould, head curator of mammals at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., at a seminar. Dr. Gould needed a volunteer to help care for the zoo animals. He also hoped to find someone to help conduct research on the star-nosed mole. An undergraduate at the University of Maryland majoring in zoology at this time, Catania applied for the job. He got it.

His career path led him to study the star on the nose of the star-nosed mole solely at first, and he made amazing discoveries. The work on the mole led him to study shrews next because while trying to trap star-nosed moles, he instead frequently found shrews in his traps. He came to study electric eels because one of theories about the star on star-nosed moles was that the star was an electroreceptive organ. Another animal, the tentacled snake, which also became a subject of study, used maybe an electroreceptive organ or organs to hunt fish, no one really knew. He didn’t know about tentacled snakes at all, but learned about their existence while visiting the National Zoo to look at turtles, a favorite animal he liked very much, especially the alligator snapping turtles. He also became interested in “worm grunting.” If you want to know what this is, and what Catania discovered on how and why it worked, read the book. I will say worms are what he fed his shrews and moles. He wanted to know how moles and shrews found worms to eat when deep underground in tunnels with no light.

If you’ve noticed Catania seems to select subjects to research and study in a sort of follow a bouncing ball of interests, that is correct! Serendipity is the star which guided Catania’s destiny as a award-winning scientist. He says it was also a lot of luck.

Catania does not write about his research or his discoveries as if he was an arrogant genius or a by-the-numbers scientist. Instead, he describes himself throughout the book as someone wanting to figure something out about an animal or insect, so he thinks of some experiments and records their behaviors on video. He appears to have a talent for coming up with experiments that are unique and quirky while still meeting the exacting rules of science experimentation. Planting his tongue firmly in his cheek, and combining his curiosity with scientific rigor, he seems a very creative scientist. In fact, my one complaint about his book is he tends to over-emphasize how accidental his discoveries are because of his bouncing ball of interests style. However, I think it is truly how he operates.

For example, there is a remarkable insect called the emerald jewel wasp. It enslaves cockroaches to obey its will with two venomous stings. After the stings, it leads the cockroach into a dark hole, lays an egg on the cockroach’s leg, and covers up the entrance to the hole. The wasp larvae, after hatching, burrows into the cockroach and eats it from the inside.

This is the YouTube video experiment the author made to watch how the wasp makes a zombie of cockroaches.

https://youtu.be/bNTKm_KJgZs?si=-N9rT...

Isn’t it cute? Shut up.

Besides doing in-depth experimentation to learn more about the wasp’s behavior and its venom, he also studied how cockroaches defend themselves against the wasp.

The book has in-depth References and Index sections. There are also lots of photos and drawings, as well as qcodes which link to individual YouTube videos showing the animal or insect experiment Cateria is writing about in the ebook. But you can click on this link to his YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/@greatadaptations...

I LOVED this book!

[Cate · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting book and there is a bit of "the author as a young scientist" memoir wrapped into the first half, which is what bumps it from 3 to 4 stars for me.

The narrator (I listened to e-audio, thanks Digital Johnson County!) spoke very slowly and with super irritating inflection patterns. I ended up listening at 1.5x speed, which is something I never do. Definitely recommend to consume this one in print if that's at all possible.

[Ivan]

Leaving it unrated as I lasted only 10 minutes into this audiobook.

Insufferably slow (even at 1.5x speed) and horribly intoned. Chris Sorensen is a name I will remember to avoid.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love books where the author is really excited about the subject matter. Everything animal related in this book was new to me. This author may be a scientist but he is also a good writer.

I didn't know star-nosed moles even existed. The setup for the picture of the star-nosed mole embryo in Chapter 2 was perfect. When I turned the page and saw the picture, I had some sense of the spooky feeling the author must have felt. So if you are a reader who looks ahead before finishing reading as I sometimes do, don't turn the page too quick and spoil it! I was glad I didn't in this case.

Surprisingly, I found the chapter on tentacled snakes interesting. The way these creatures use fish biology to get the fish to swim right into their mouth is diabolical.

And who knew worm grunting was a thing? I sure didn't.

This is one of those books where you learn a lot about the subject matter but you also finish feeling like you learned a lot about the author too. I enjoy a sense of humor and there was plenty of that, especially in the end when he demonstrated how he made a horror movie with a jewel wasp and a cockroach. There's a QR code where I presume you can watch this horror movie for yourself but so far I've been too much of a sissy to do it. In any case, the writing is so descriptive that your brain can fill in the rest.

Hopefully, this book finds it's way into your hands!

[Sauerkirsche · Rating 3 out of 5]

Das Buch bietet einen interessanten Einblick in die Feldforschung bzw. die typische Arbeit eines "Wald- und Wiesenbiologen". Viel mehr kann ich leider nicht sagen, da ich das Hörbuch gehört habe und der Sprecher absolut furchtbar war. Die Betonung war absolut fehl am Platze, es hat sich eher angehört wie ein Comedybuch. Das hätte sogar ich besser vorlesen können.
Daher werde ich mir das Buch kaufen und nochmal in Ruhe lesen. Bis dahin 3 Sterne.

[Kristin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting science here and the animals are really cool, but I just couldn’t get fully immersed. To be fair, I was not thrilled with the audiobook reader and that might have been at play (he read every sentence like the guy screaming “INCONCEIVABLE” in The Princess Bride).

[Elentarri · Rating 4 out of 5]

An entertaining and fascinating semi-memoir examination of interesting sensory adaptations evolved in Star-nosed Moles, electric Eels, shrews, earth-worms etc.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

A nice collection of stories, digging into the foundations of animal behavior and biology, intermixed with an autobiographical thread. The book is well edited, too, though I wouldn't mind much more of this.

> The special relationship between mouse whiskers and the mouse brain. Each of the whiskers is visible in the mouse neocortex as an oval, clearly showing how the mouse face is “mapped” into the brain. This relationship has made mice a “model system” for neuroscientists investigating the sense of touch.

> the tip of each [star-nose mole nose] appendage is made from tissue farther back on the face than the base of each appendage. It is a backward developmental sequence, unlike the development of any other known appendage in the entire animal Kingdom

> the moles paused their underwater movements to explore objects, and at the same time, air bubbles emerged from their nostrils, flowed over whatever they were investigating, without detaching from the nose, and then got sucked back into the nostrils.

> The snake’s J-shaped hunting posture is a set-up. It creates a concave space between the snake’s head and neck. The snake stays rigidly still and camouflaged until a fish wanders into the center of the concave space, at which point one fish ear is facing the snake’s neck and the other ear is facing the snake’s head (and jaws). Then, instead of simply striking at the fish, the snake’s first move is a feint—it twitches its neck. The feint occurs a millisecond or two before the real attack begins, and generates a sound in the water that reaches the fish almost immediately, giving the wrong commanding Mauthner cell a head start in the critical decision of which way to turn. A fraction of a second later, the real attack is launched as the snake strikes out toward the fish with jaws containing needle-sharp teeth. The snake’s strike, the real threat, generates a massive shock wave, but it’s too late. The opposing Mauthner cell—now wielding ultimate authority—was activated first. Subsequently, the wrong inhibitory neurons were activated, ensuring that the muscles for the proper escape direction were shut down. Worse yet, as the snake’s strikes closes in, the C-bend propels the fish into the oncoming jaws.

> vision is comparatively slow, and therefore the retina cannot deal with a rapidly moving visual scene. We have the same problem when we move our eyes—you can demonstrate this by going to a mirror and looking back and forth at either eye; you will never see a movement. Your nervous system suppresses visual signals when your eyes move so you don’t see the world streak by in a disorienting blur. (Try this again looking at the self-view on your phone camera. A slight delay in the system will usually allow you to see the missing movements.) Tentacled snakes take this suppression a step further—they retract their eyes to protect them during the strike

> In 1951, seventy years after Darwin published his book on worms, Niko Tinbergen published a similarly focused work on seagulls titled “The Herring Gull’s World.” In it he described a strange foot paddling behavior the gulls do on soil: “What I have seen in other gulls has, however, convinced me that paddling has two different functions. One is the bringing up of earthworms, which seem to have an innate reaction to the quivering of the soil which is of value, enabling them to escape their arch-enemy, the mole” (the other function is apparently to flush aquatic prey when standing in shallow water). Much later, in 1986, John Kaufmann of the University of Florida reported that wood turtles stomp their feet on the ground to bring up worms for an easy meal. He even suggested the turtles were “grunting” for worms

> Unlike crayfish, a water shrew’s nerve fibers are wrapped in a fatty substance called myelin that provides electrical insulation. This helps to speed signals along neural pathways (myelin is found in all mammal brains, giving the brain’s “white matter” its pale coloration). Because conduction of nerve impulses is faster at higher temperatures, these two specializations compound the shrew’s speed advantage.

> Eventually they found a group with a creative, if barbaric, plan—they would “fish with horses.” Humboldt had no idea what lay in store as the fishermen rode off to the savannah. They returned driving a herd of thirty reluctant horses, and with much commotion the horses were forced into a nearby pool of muddy water full of eels. The result was spectacular, though predictably unfortunate for the horses. The eels emerged from the mud and attacked from all sides, shocking the stamping and screaming animals repeatedly. Within five minutes, two horses sank below the surface. Humboldt was sure the rest would be killed, but soon the eels were exhausted, which was apparently the plan. Then the eels were safely collected, and Humboldt was finally able to conduct his experiments

[Cav · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one did not meet my expectations, unfortunatley... Author Kenneth C. Catania is a biologist and neuroscientist teaching and conducting research at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, according to his Wikipedia page.

Kenneth Catania :


I found much of the writing in Great Adaptations to be overly dry, long-winded, and rambling. There is way too much talk of the author's professional life, and not enough on the actual topics the book's title describes...
And although the book features many illustrations, and contains a lot of interesting info, I felt that the style as well formatting left much to be desired...
There was an interesting bit of writing in here about "worm grunting" - which was something I had never heard of before reading this book.

Unfortunately, this kind of dry and verbose tone is somewhat typical of many other science books written by scientists. The skillset required to write an engaging book rarely coincides with the skillset to produce decent science.
The short length of this book makes this even more tragic. Thankfully the book wasn't longer, or I would have put it down...

2.5 stars for this one. I would not recommend it.

[Kay]

Gah. This sounded cool, but 36 pages in and I 'm simultaneously annoyed and bored. Dumbed down to the point of being dumb. And spare me the jokes/puns. Oh, and the first chapter ends in an apparent cliffhanger that is no such thing. Sophomoric.

[The Inquisitive Biologist · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gateway drug to biology, the excellent Great Adaptations features unusual animals and entertaining science experiments that anyone can understand. See my full review at https://inquisitivebiologist.com/2022...

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super interesting. As a person who constantly Googles images while reading so I can see what is being talked about, the inclusion of many images was helpful. Even better were the QR codes, so I could actually watch the phenomena described in the text.

[Nancy Mills · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely delightful and riveting. Never a dull moment, and so funny! Highly recommended for anyone who likes animals, science and extremely curious oddities.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brimming with infectious enthusiasm, this book is equal parts a showcase of how science is done, failures followed by success (though he admits in the epilogue that he didn't describe ALL the failures), equal parts tour of the weirdnesses of the animal kingdom. It was fascinating enough for me to recount the first couple of chapters from memory to my husband while we were on a walk. The ingenuity of the scientific experiments was also super interesting. Would be a good book for a middle/high schooler who's interested in going into science.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the author’s first foray into books and he knew what he was doing! Catania clearly has a delightfully quirky personality and knows a thing about good books so is evident by how this book was organized and written.

Catania is a biologist who studies animal behavior and designs experiments to learn why and how animals have unusual adaptations. The book is chockful of original and fun facts about well known stars of the animal kingdom such as the star nosed mole, zombie wasps, and electric eels.

Somehow Catania hits the mark in so many ways: the writing is casual, but it doesn’t talk down to the reader because there are enough explanations and lab setups to follow. It’s amusing because it peppers the book with some illustrations and analogies that make it a delight to read, but are not distracting with their insistence or overuse. What shines through is Catania’s oddball but likable personality whether it’s as an obliviously grizzled field biologist seeking moles or using zombie arms to see how eels electrocute their prey. Lastly Catania isn’t a Luddite and uses qpr codes so you can actually watch his subjects in action on your smartphone.


If you’re a fan of nature and evolution, this book is an absolute delight and you should pick it up today.

[Jacob · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fantastic book. I constantly told my wife as I was reading how grateful I was that Dr. Catania did all this in depth work so that I could read about it and gain this knowledge in a fraction of the time. And, unlike a lot of meandering science books I've read, this one was straight and to the point, reflecting its title accurately.

This is a work in the vein of early Stephen Hawking - filled with accessible information with some corny humor sprinkled on top. Similarly, Dr. Catania has an undisguisable fascination and enthusiasm for the topics he delves into. This is a professor you would want to take a class from, because his passion is infectious.

Short, informative, accessible, well illustrated, funny - I mean this is about as good as a science book can get. Pick it up off the shelf. You will learn a lot and it might even be fun ;)

[Dallin Kohler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating read. Catania doesn't just describe a couple wacky animal adapations; he recounts his personal role in uncovering some unique features of some very wacky creatures. The level of detail is great, though some parts might go over the head of a reader with little scientific knowledge. There are a lot of funny, 'mad scientist' vibes from some of his experiments (testing electric eels with his own arm, or building a miniature horror movie set for a zombie wasp photoshoot). Fun guy, fun subject, fun read.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read it. I’m giving it for the humor and the ending. I enjoyed the author’s voice: great humor and humility! Fun anecdotes. But the epilogue is so what we need to hear at this moment. Science is amazing and humbling and uplifting and drudgery and always offering new things to explore if you’re only willing to look.

[Stephanie White · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75⭐️- I never knew animals like star-nosed moles and water shrews could be presented in such an interesting manner! Catania does an excellent job of balancing humor, storytelling, and the presentation of science-based evidence in a way that is both entertaining and palatable for a non-expert. I got this book on a whim, and I'm glad I did!

[Kyle Aaronson · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the most accessible-to-the-laymen science books I’ve read. The creatures discussed are fascinating, and Catania’s love for their depths comes through in spades. Who knew a shrew could be so cool?

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating in-depth look at the physical and behavioral adaptations about a handful of critters you probably know very little about. The last chapter on the jewel wasp is perfect, but if you know me well you will know that I never want to read it again—eek!

[Dev · Rating 4 out of 5]

love it when a book gives me a fact that makes me start swearing out loud. what do you MEAN shrews just shrink their bodies instead of hibernating?????? huh????????? also do love reading about experiment design and the scientific process this is stuff that i was SO bad at but still really enjoy reading about

[Natalie Potter · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was different than I expected. I was hoping it would be as entertaining as similar “cool animal facts” books I have read such as What an Owl Knows and Night Magic but it isn’t. This was part autobiography- part scientific paper, and not for me. Perhaps it is intended for research students.

[Nilla Sivakumar]

sometimes I need a reminder of why I entered science in the first place and this fit the bill

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

[Tia Seymanski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very educational read about critters I’ve forgotten about!

[Guy Lenk · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book full of really interesting details about the animals covered. It's written in a biographical story fashion that makes it quite engaging. Who wouldn't want to hear about a dollhouse for cockroaches after all? And, best of all (at least to me), it really does get into some cool science in all of the little vignettes. I highly recommend this one for just about anyone interested in animals and science.

[Hind · Rating 4 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed this book. With enough curiosity, one can do good science studying anything.