The Book of Animal Ignorance

by John Lloyd & John Mitchinson

Published by Faber & Faber, Oct 2007.

'Animals are the oats in the QI muesli, the basic black frock in our wardrobe, the baseline to our phat phunky dub...' from the Forword by Stephen Fry

The sequel to the bestselling Book of General Ignorance is an off-road safari through a hundred of the most interesting members of the animal kingdom.

Meet the water bears that can live in suspension for hundreds of years, the parasite carried by your cat that makes men grumpy and women promiscuous, and the woodlouse that drinks through its bottom. Marvel at elephants that walk on tiptoe, pigs that shine in the dark, and woodpeckers that have ears on the end of their tongues.

Wander through an unfamiliar world in which elephants can't run, geese mourn their dead, koalas don't drink, leeches have 34 brains, lobsters live for a century, mice sing while having sex, monkeys pay to look at porn, spiders can fly, termites mate for life and worms get addicted to nicotine.

It will make you look at our furred-feathered-scaled-creepy-crawly-slimy-wiggly, friends with new-found respect.

Almost none of this material has appeared on the QI TV show before. And, better still, it features 400 diagrams and cartoons by the brilliant Ted Dewan: artist, author, polymath and engineer (we nearly called it The Book of Animal Engineering) plus a Foreword by Stephen Fry (see 'Treasures, National') and a Forepaw by Alan Davies (see 'Animals, Best impressions of').

If you still think a pangolin is a musical instrument, that hyenas are dogs, or that sheep are pointless and stupid, The Book of Animal Ignorance has arrived just in time.