Bite To Survive

Australia is not for the faint hearted! For millions of years isolation shaped the continent unlike any other on Earth. Ancient inland seas vanished, rainforests retreated, deserts expanded, the climate shifted, the land hardened, and life was forced to adapt or disappear. The result was a cast of animals found nowhere else on the planet. Saltwater Crocodiles with the strongest recorded bite of any living animal. Venomous snakes armed with toxins powerful enough to stop a heart. Sharks that can detect electricity fields. Birds that wage territorial wars. Mammals that lay eggs. Lizards that survive where a few other creatures can. Yet this isn't a book about fear – it's a book about survival. Through science, exploration and first-hand encounters from some of Australia's wildest places, the author takes readers on a journey through the remarkable adaptations that have allowed life to flourish on the driest inhabited continent on Earth. You’ll meet animals that fight, flirt, fake, freeze, glow, spit, swim, tunnel and disappear in plain sight – all in the name of survival. Every adaptation, every battle, every secret weapon in the animal toolkit. From Uluru to the Daintree, and from the Simpson Desert to the Great Barrier Reef, these are the eye-opening stories of the animals, landscapes and evolutionary battles that shaped modern Australia Because in a land forged by drought, fire, predators and isolation, every species shares one thing in common – a bite to survive.