Flying Frogs and Walking Fish: Leaping Lemurs, Tumbling Toads, Jet-Propelled Jellyfish, and More Surprising Ways That Animals Move by Steve Jenkins (review)

In their ongoing exploration of the natural world, Jenkins and Page have addressed a variety of subjects, and here they turn to animal motion and some critters who move through the world in surprising ways. Each section starts with a featured example and then explores a gallery of practitioners—the walking section, for example, goes from an octopus (which walks on two of its tentacles) to bats, millipedes, kangaroos (which use their tails as a fifth leg), etc. The book also catalogues leapers (the legendary leaping lizard jumps several times its own body length), swimmers (Asian elephants swim “using their trunks as snorkels”), climbers (coconut crabs can climb trees), gliders (a flying snake can sail from tree to tree), rollers (pangolins can roll away from a threat), and jetters (“A frogfish . . . surges forward by expelling water from its gills”). The movements aren’t always clearly conveyed (vignettes floating against white backgrounds make it hard to envision the environmental interaction), but otherwise the featured animals are well chosen for diversity and interest, and the locomotion methods are startling and intriguing. This is therefore a useful addition to the ever-expanding Jenkins/Page nature study shelves. A two-page overview of the featured animals is appended.