596: The Kingdom of Rarities by Eric Dinerstein

596: Dinerstein, Eric. The Kingdom of Rarities. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2013. 270 pp. ISBN 978-1-61091-195-5.

Dewey Breakdown:

• 500: Pure Science
• 590: Zoological sciences
• 596: Chordata (vertebrates)

In the world of animals, there exists an interesting phenomena: of the millions of species on the planet, why are there so many with extremely limited population sizes? What processes lead to the limiting of animal groups? Why, for instance, is the Kirtland’s warbler so rare that an entire festival is planned around their sighting? Eric Dinerstein, a veteran of the World Wildlife Fund, travels the world to check out hotspots of animal rarity. In The Kingdom of Rarities, he posits that the animal kingdom can be divided into two groups—the Kingdom of the Common and the Kingdom of the Rare. It’s these rare species that help to drive biological research and that research is one of the many keys required to unlock the mysteries of how the world’s ecosystems function.