Comments on: Komodo Dragons Evolved To Eat Pygmy Elephants

By: Monitor Lizards on the Road | AsiaObscura

Monitor Lizards on the Road | AsiaObscura — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 13:37:07 +0000

[...] was more like a dinosaur or a dragon. It could probably eat a small child. (Speaking of which, in this fascinating article, it’s hypothesized that Komodo Dragons used to eat pigmy elephants. That sounds [...]

By: Koma

Koma — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 20:11:48 +0000

Such strange animals…

By: Jay

Jay — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 03:39:52 +0000

Kyle, I see your point, though Quammen is incredibly interested in the science of ecology, particularly as it relates to islands and the distribution of species, while Diamond was focused on the inherit characteristics that shaped the evolution of the human species — particularly inanimate things about the geography of continents that had enormous implications for the evolution of humans and the crops and livestock we developed.

Diamond’s book was great intellectual stuff, but I’ve found Quammen’s writing more fun. I think he writes about a subject (ecology) which has the potential to bore those not steeped in its ways, in a manner that really captures the imagination.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 16:44:08 +0000

I read GGS about six months ago, and I actually think of GGS and SotD as doing about the same thing (i.e., thinking about how geographic/climatological factors have such a huge impact on the development of species/civilization). In fact, after I started reading SotD, I felt like I had already read the sequel.

By: Jay

Jay — Tue, 30 May 2006 16:39:14 +0000

Yes, his writing is wonderful. I would use the word vivid to describe his prose. He strings words together in ways that make me envious.

While I really liked Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond (and frankly find his ideas on that subject matter more profound because of their implications for how they shaped humanity), his writing is nowhere near as entertaining as Quammen’s.

I’ll have to post an excerpt one day to provide an example of just how good a writer he is.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Tue, 30 May 2006 04:12:13 +0000

I read about half this book earlier in the year and loved it (didn’t finish largely because spring break ended). I think that work that Quammen does explaining evolutionary concepts to the lay reader in quite understandable terms is vitally important (even despite the fact that he sometimes takes swipes at literary critics (which I’m in grad school to become)).