A Curious Collection of Wild Companions: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Inseparable Species

by Sami Bayly

Overview

Heartwarming, surprising, and downright bizarre creature connections

Relationships can be complicated, and it’s no different in the wild. Meet 60 dynamic duos across the plant and animal kingdom—from “aww” to “eek”!

The Eltham copper butterfly and the Notoncus ant are BFFs for life. The ants lovingly raise the butterflies’ caterpillar babies, while feasting on the sweet substance the caterpillars produce. Everybody wins in this prime example of mutualism.

The pseudoscorpian is a total freeloader. When it wants to get around, it boards the back of the giant harlequin beetle, in a one-sided setup called commensalism.

Parasitism is where things get spooky. Learn how the green-banded broodsac (a type of flatworm) first invades the eyestalk of the amber snail, then tricks it into getting eaten by a bird—inside which the broodsac will grow up. Yikes!

Award-winning author and illustrator Sami Bayly shows us a whole world of wild companions like these—many endangered—and reminds us that we’re all inseparable.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781615199129
Publisher:	The Experiment, LLC
Publication date:	09/27/2022
Series:	Curious Collection of Creatures
Pages:	128
Sales rank:	623,373
Product dimensions:	7.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	10 - 14 Years

About the Author

Sami Bayly is a natural history illustrator who loves all things weird and wonderful. She finds the beauty and importance of all animals regardless of their appearance. Her first book, A Curious Collection of Peculiar Creatures, won the Children’s Indie Book of the Year Award and the Australian Book Design Award for Younger Readers. It was a CBCA Honour Book and was shortlisted for an ABIA Book of the Year for Younger Children and longlisted for the ABA Booksellers’ Choice 2020 Book of the Year Awards. Her second book, A Curious Collection of Dangerous Creatures, was a CBCA Honour Book, an ABIA Book of the Year for Younger Children, won an Australian Book Design Award for Younger Readers, and was shortlisted for the Children’s Indie Book of the Year 2020.

Table of Contents

Contents:
Introduction
1.           Acacia Ant and the Bullhorn Acacia
2.           African Death’s-head Hawkmoth and the Western Honey Bee
3.           Australian Clownfish and the Bubble-tip Anemone
4.           Barnacle and Grey Whale
5.           Bell Miner, Psyllid and the Eucalyptus
6.           Blue-banded Bee and the Climbing Guinea Flower
7.           Boxer Crab and the Sea Anemone
8.           Brown-throated Three-toed Sloth and the Sloth Moth
9.           Canberra Grassland Earless Dragon and the Garden Wolf Spider
10.         Candy Stripe Pistol Shrimp and the Black-ray Goby
11.         Cape Sugarbird and the King Protea
12.         Cattle Egret and Grazing Animals
13.         Colombian Lesserblack Tarantula and the Dotted Humming Frog
14.         Common Jack Mackerel and the Tongue-biting Louse
15.         Common Warthog and the Banded Mongoose
16.         Desert Quandong and the Emu
17.         Eastern Screech Owl and the Texas Blind Snake
18.         Egyptian Spiny-tailed Lizard and the Arabian Fattail Scorpion
19.         Emperor Shrimp and the Spanish Dancer
20.         Femme Fatale Firefly and the Common Eastern Firefly
21.         Fig Wasp and the Moreton Bay Fig
22.         Fire Urchin and the Carrier Crab
23.         Galapagos Dove and the opuntia Cactus
24.         Glossy Black Cockatoo and the Drooping She-oak
25.         Golden Ant and the Ant Plant
26.         Golden-tipped Bat and the Australian Garden Orb Weaver Spider
27.         Golden Jackal and the Bengal Tiger
28.         Green-banded Broodsac and the Amber Snail
29.         Green-thighed Frog and Rain
30.         Green Sea Turtle and the Yellow Tang
31.         Grey Wolf and the Common Raven
32.         Kinkajou and the Balsa Tree
33.         Leadbeater’s Possum and the Goblin Flea
34.         Leopard Coral Grouper and the Bluestreak Cleaner Wrasse
35.         Little Red Flying Fox and Flowering Eucalypts
36.         Lord Howe Island Stick Insect and the Melaleuca
37.         Marine Iguana and the Floreana Lava Lizard
38.         Mind-controlling Parasite, Cat and the Common Rat
39.         Monarch Butterfly and the Viceroy Butterfly
40.         Mountain Pygmy Possum and Heath’s Tick
41.         Mountain Treeshrew and the Pitcher Plant
42.         Nile Crocodile and the Egyptian Plover
43.         Northern Bettong and the Truffle
44.         Ocean Sunfish and the Laysan Albatross
45.         Oceanic Whitetip Shark and the Pilot Fish
46.         Painted Honeyeater and the Grey Mistletoe
47.         Pea Crab and the Blue Mussel
48.         Pinhead Pearlfish and the Leopard Sea Cucumber
49.         Pink-tailed Worm Lizard and the Tyrant Ant
50.         Pseudoscorpion and the Giant Harlequin Beetle
51.         Red Weaver Ant and the Soft Scale Bug
52.         Reef Manta Ray and the White Suckerfish
53.         Scarlet Banksia and Fire
54.         Sponge Decorator Crab and Sea Sponges
55.         Spotted Handfish and the Sea Squirt
56.         Stinking Corpse Lily and the Liana Vine
57.         Sweet Bursaria, the Eltham Copper Butterfly and the Notoncus Ant
58.         Trigger Plant and the Reed Bee
59.         Vampire Finch and the Nazca Booby
60.         Verco’s Nudibranch and the Bryozoan
About the Author
 

Editorial Reviews

"Praise for A Curious Collection of Dangerous Creatures

#1 Indie Bestseller
Amazon Editors’ Pick—Best Nonfiction for Kids
Shortlisted for the 2021 Indie Book Awards, Best Children’s Book of the Year
Shortlisted for the Children’s Book Council of Australia 2021 Book of the Year

Praise for A Curious Collection of Peculiar Creatures

An Indie Bestseller
Amazon Editors’ Pick—Best Nonfiction for Kids
An Indie Book Awards Best Children’s Book of the Year, 2020

"The perfect gift for curious young minds."

Mountain Life

"This informative book with spectacular illustrations of ugly animals will inform, entertain, and promote discussion about what is ugly and what is not."

4.5 stars The Sunday Telegraph

"Enough of the cute and cuddly, time to rethink the dichotomy of beauty and ugliness and to celebrate the weird and wonderful. Bayly researched and painted 60 of the world’s most aesthetically challenged animals for her encyclopedia."

Sydney Morning Herald

Praise for A Curious Collection of Dangerous Creatures

#1 Indie Bestseller
Amazon Editors’ Pick—Best Nonfiction for Kids
Shortlisted for the 2021 Indie Book Awards, Best Children’s Book of the Year
Shortlisted for the Children’s Book Council of Australia 2021 Book of the Year

Praise for A Curious Collection of Peculiar Creatures

An Indie Bestseller
Amazon Editors’ Pick—Best Nonfiction for Kids
An Indie Book Awards Best Children's Book of the Year, 2020

“The perfect gift for curious young minds”—Mountain Life

“This informative book with spectacular illustrations of ugly animals will inform, entertain, and promote discussion about what is ugly and what is not.”—The Sunday Telegraph,4.5 stars

“Enough of the cute and cuddly, time to rethink the dichotomy of beauty and ugliness and to celebrate the weird and wonderful.
Bayly researched and painted 60 of the world’s most aesthetically challenged animals for her encyclopedia.”—Sydney Morning Herald

From the Publisher