The Great Alpaca Heist
A Victorian wool merchant set out on an audacious, decade-long quest to smuggle alpacas out of Peru. But transporting his flock to Australia was only half the struggle.
Natural History
Potted Histories
Discovering the deep roots of the cheese plant.
The Rise of the Newts
A speculative novel about an amphibious threat held dire warnings for interwar Europe.
Crossing Oceans
Cloves, grown in Indonesia, crossed the globe in the Middle Ages, showing how interconnected the medieval world was.
In Pursuit of Pith
Flowers formed from pith paper captured the imagination of British society in the 19th century, sparking a search for the elusive ‘rice paper’ plant.
The ‘Monstrous Birth’ of Lobsters
The fact that lobsters ‘walked’ on their claws puzzled even Aristotle. He had to employ all his deductive genius to explain why.
A Donkey’s Day in Court
In 1822 a badly abused donkey became the first animal to receive justice in a British court.
A Philosophy of Falcons
Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, was obsessed with falconry. This led him to write a truly revolutionary book on the subject.
One Giant Leap for Tortoise-Kind
The first of Earth’s creatures to hurtle into the Moon’s orbit were slow and sedentary residents of the Great Steppe.
The End of Turtle Soup
How food fashion changed the economy of the Cayman Islands.