The Book of Barely Imagined Beings Quotes

“Microbes dominated the Proterozoic and arguably they still largely determine the course of life today. They are, as the microbiologist John Ingraham puts it, ‘our inventors, progenitors and keepers’. (They are also our disposers: death is not the end, it’s just a case of being metabolically different.) In the big picture – the cycles of life on Earth – microbes are the beginning and end of all. Or, as the palaeontologist Andrew Knoll asserts, ‘eukaryotes are the icing and prokaryotes are the cake’.”
― Caspar Henderson, The Book Of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary

“The salamander’, he wrote, ‘is a sufficiently convincing example that everything which burns is not consumed, as the souls in hell are not.”
― Caspar Henderson, The Book Of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary

“In such circumstances, small steps such as protecting a nesting site may seem inadequate. But they are a start....as Carl Safina puts in, 'You dodge despair not by taking the deluge of problems full bore. You focus on what can work, what can help, or what you can do, and you seize it, and then - you don't let go.”
― Caspar Henderson, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary

“Moray eels have a second set of jaws deep at the back of their throat which shoot forward at high speed, grab the prey and rapidly protract backwards again, pulling the prey down into the oesophagus as the animal closes its mouth.”
― Caspar Henderson, The Book Of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary

“We can recognize that what we value, stand by or love will inevitably be lost - that, as a Buddhist saying has it, a fragile cup that we see before us may look whole and perfect but in the larger scheme of things it is already broken. But that does not mean that our situation is without joy or even a little comedy.”
― Caspar Henderson, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary

“All things make music with their lives, as John Muir said.”
― Caspar Henderson, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary

“According to the Ashmole Bestiary, it is also an animal of mass destruction: It is the most poisonous of all poisonous creatures. Others kill one at a time; this creature kills several at once. For if it crawls into a tree all the apples are infected with its poison, and those that eat them die. In the same way, if it falls in a well, the water will poison those who drink it.”
― Caspar Henderson, The Book Of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary

“The union of salamander and fire actually predates Christianity and perhaps Judaism. ‘Sam andaran’ means ‘fire within’ in Persian, the language of Zoroastrians – early monotheists for whom fire was an important symbol of the divine.”
― Caspar Henderson, The Book Of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary

“The Ashmole Bestiary, an illuminated book of beasts made in England in the High Middle Ages, mirrors this: ‘The salamander lives in the midst of flames without pain and without being consumed; not only does it not burn, but it puts out flames.”
― Caspar Henderson, The Book Of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary

“Along with its newt cousins, the axolotl is able to regenerate entire severed limbs.”
― Caspar Henderson, The Book Of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary

“On a bright afternoon in early summer a few years ago, my wife and I took our tiny new daughter out on a picnic.”
― Caspar Henderson, The Book Of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary

“Some specialists in regenerative medicine believe that it may be possible one day to restore human limbs and even organs in ways derived at least in part from what we have learned from these creatures.”
― Caspar Henderson, The Book Of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary

“The Argentine writer Julio Cortázar imagines a character gazing at an axolotl for so long and so intently that he becomes one.”
― Caspar Henderson, The Book Of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary

“The lidless, beady eyes, the gills branching like soft coral from its neck, and the lizard-like body kitted out with dainty arms and legs, fingers and toes, together with a tadpole-like tail make this creature seem quite alien.”
― Caspar Henderson, The Book Of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary

“So long as we remain human we still see with eyes that were shaped by tens of millions of years looking for ripe fruit in the forest. Let us not forget what sight can be when it is not mediated by machines.”
― Caspar Henderson, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary

“they can also penetrate the skin of a human or dolphin a few metres away to ‘see’ a beating heart or the movements of a baby in the womb. According to some reports, dolphins have recognized women as pregnant before the women themselves knew, treating the women as they do pregnant dolphins.”
― Caspar Henderson, The Book Of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary

“life on Earth is basically a giant microbial vat and eukaryotic organisms are merely the bubbles on its surface? Are we – the froth – deluded in valuing ourselves so highly?”
― Caspar Henderson, The Book Of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary