Bruce Bagemihl - Biological Exuberance

I am profoundly grateful to Michael Denneny, not only for his editorial acumen and invaluable insights, but also for championing this project with unflagging enthusiasm and personal devotion. This book would simply not have come into being without his guiding hand at its helm. I would also like to acknowledge the many other people at St. Martin’s Press who worked on this project, including: Robert Cloud, Helene Berinsky, Steven Boldt, and Sarah Rutigliano. A heartfelt thanks as well to Natasha Kern and Oriana Green, who believed in this book from the very, very beginning and helped steer it through the (sometimes treacherous) waters of the publishing industry. I am also grateful to Robert Jones and Eric Steel for their early support of this project.

A special note of appreciation goes to John Megahan (Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan), whose superb drawings turned my vision of this book into a reality. John brought nearly two hundred animals to life with accuracy, aplomb, and an exuberant visual style, all the while weathering the numerous pressures of this project with grace and good cheer. John would like to thank his wife, Anne, for her invaluable support and feedback during this project. Many thanks also to the other individuals and organizations who contributed illustrations or assisted in the preparation of visual materials: Stuart Kenter and Tom McCarthy (Stuart Kenter Associates)—photo research and permissions; Gary Antonetti and Jon Daugherity (Ortelius Design)—cartography; Phyllis Wood (Phyllis Wood Associates Scientific Illustration)—icon design; Turid Owren—legal services; and the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators.

I would also like to thank the librarians, information specialists, and other staff at the following libraries, who guided me through numerous arcane bibliographic and electronic searches and helped me navigate their collections: University of Washington libraries, University of British Columbia libraries, Simon Fraser University Library, University of California—Los Angeles libraries (including the Rare Books collection of the biomedical library), University of Hawaii libraries, National Marine Mammal Laboratory Library, Woodland Park Zoological Gardens Library, Vancouver Public Aquarium Library, Seattle Public Library, Vancouver Public Library. Many rare journals, books, monographs, dissertations, and technical reports were not available at these institutions and were obtained primarily through the interlibrary loan division of the Seattle Public Library. Thanks to the hardworking staff in this division, and to the following institutions and organizations for loaning or otherwise making available from their library collections rare or hard-to-find items: California Academy of Sciences, Evergreen State College, Humboldt State University, Idaho State University, Montana State University, Oregon Regional Primate Research Center, Portland State University, The Royal Australasian Ornithologists’ Union, University of Alaska, University of Alberta, University of California—Davis, University of California—Irvine, University of California—Santa Cruz, University of Kansas, University of Minnesota, University of Montana, University of Oregon, University of Texas—Austin, University of Utah, University of Victoria, University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee, University of Wyoming, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, Vancouver Public Library, Washington State University. For help with translations of scientific articles, thanks to Sergei V. Mihailov (Russian), John R. Van Son (Dutch), and Courtney Searles-Ridge (German).

Finally, I am truly indebted to the many other people who provided personal support, encouragement, feedback, commiseration, and inspiration over the many years that this book was in gestation (and labor!), including Dawn Bates, Nicola Bessell, Thom Feild, Neal Graves, Ed Kaplan, Clara Ma, Nathan Ohren, Jackal Plumb, Michael Rochemont, and Liza White. Thank you most deeply, Nicola, for holding my hand as I leapt into the void….

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“Bagemihl’s monumental Biological Exuberance embraces paradox and celebrates seemingly incompatible phenomena while forging a compelling argument about the very essence of existence…. It is a landmark in the literature of science.”

“A brilliant and important exercise in exposing the limitations of received opinion, this book presents to the lay reader and specialist alike an exhaustively argued case that animals have multiple shades of sexual orientation…. What might so easily have turned into a tub-thumping activist tract hitched to the need for acceptance of homosexuality in humans is instead elevated to a hugely inclusive, celebratory biological interpretation of the world.”