Surprising, shocking and often very funny truths about the animal kingdom, in a delicious book that combines rigor and humor.

Do we know everything about animals? Is our knowledge about them really scientific? Or do we allow ourselves to be carried away by myths, clichés and false truths?

This book reveals to us how we project our beliefs onto animals, how we attribute to them attitudes and roles that are translations of our vision of the world. And so, seduced by the images of a famous documentary about penguins, we turn them into a paragon of family virtues, loyalty and responsibility. Endearing. But are they really like that? Well, it turns out that rather not...

And, like this one, the book debunks many other false myths: are hyenas really cowards? Are bats fond of vampirism? Are the vultures the bad guys in the movie? And it also offers us a very juicy anecdote that goes from the habit of sloths to defecate every eight days to the cosmetic use of beaver testicles, including the escape of hippos from Pablo Escobar's zoo in Colombia, the hobby of the supposedly shy pandas to trios, the peculiar reproductive cycle of frogs or the wild sexual appetite of penguins. Lucy Cooke has written a delicious, instructive and very funny natural sciences essay, which talks about animals, about us and our prejudices and fantasies.

«Agile, fresh and so well documented that it never ceases to amaze us» (Janet Maslin, The New York Times Book Review).

"It reveals surprising and often hilarious truths that are much better than the fictions we until now believed" (Steve Mirsky, Scientific American).

"Very well documented and casually written" (Barbara Kiser, Nature).

"A joy from start to finish" (John Crace, The Guardian).

"Fascinating" (Bill Bryson).

«Rigorous and hilarious» (Richard Dawkins).