This engaging tour through evolution’s mysteries is backyard biophilia at its most entertaining and enlightening

Why do cats live longer than dogs? Why do so many different kinds of bees have yellow stripes? Why can we smell a skunk a mile away, much farther than we can detect the strongest perfume? Such questions offer puzzles about creatures' evolved traits. Besides inviting us into joys of curiosity, they focus our attention on beguiling designs that have been millions of years in the making.

In this lively, lucid book, science writer David Stipp brings a Darwinian lens to bear on evolutionary curiosities including house sparrows’ ubiquity, caffeine as the perfect poison, cannibalism among bumblebees, and the defenselessness of sleep—among many others. By revealing the hidden depths of the ordinary, Why Rats Laugh and Jellyfish Sleep demonstrates that countless fascinating conundrums exist all around us, and that taking note of them is the very best way to connect to the natural world.