NATURE'S REMARKABLE PARTNERS

Bulion and Meganck return for a volume combining scientific inquiry and poetry, here investigating pairs of species that cooperate.

Characters Honey Bee and Daisy offer playful instruction on reading aloud the verse, written in two voices and color-coded. (An appended explanation supplies a further how-to.) Fifteen poems exploring the relationships between various pairs of creatures are accompanied by clearly illustrated double-page spreads and prose explaining the animals’ mutually beneficial activities. Challenging concepts like mutualism and symbiosis are deftly probed at the outset and in the backmatter. The animal interplay is fascinating, couched in imaginatively crafted, often slyly funny verse. In Borneo’s cloud forests, scarce in insects and fruits, the mountain treeshrew licks nutritious nectar from the pitcher plant, positioning its bottom within the plant’s bowl-shaped opening, which inevitably functions like a toilet of sorts. “Yoo-hoo, mountain treeshrew… / My pitcher’s open lid / oozes nectar for you. / So… / while you sit on the rim / of my open-air loo, / relax…take your time… / and feel free to poo.” The ocean sunfish surfaces on its side, offering a platter of parasites to seabirds like the Laysan albatross. Bulion is careful to point out that not all relationships are balanced: Some “cleaner” species also draw blood and other bodily fluids from their hosts. Examinations of humans’ gut biome and the earth itself conclude the project.

Clever, visually appealing, and thought provoking.