The Prize for Science Writing: Winner 2005

Astonishing Animals by Tim Flannery and Peter Schouten (Text Publishing)

While acknowledging that the aesthetics of beauty are shared by many living things, Astonishing Animals focuses on the human recognition of beauty in the expressed astonishment at animal adaptation. In the tradition of medieval bestiaries, Astonishing Animals artfully combines both text and illustration to detail the behavioural characteristics associated with diverse animal colourings and physiology (traditionally including one imaginary animal as well). Granted, the animals are strange, exotic, weird and exaggerated, all in response to evolutionary pressures. Above all, they are beautiful, and the book is an appealing homage to the aesthetics of animal species, evolution and intellectual endeavour.