Evolution (overviews & introductions)

Print:

• The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
• The Descent of Man by Charles Darwin
• Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin
• Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History by Stephen Jay Gould
• The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
• Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin

The Unique Evolutionary Peculiarities of the Naked Mole Rats; or OMFG WHAT IS THAT THING?

Online

• “Continuous Dental Replacement in a Hyper-Chisel Tooth Digging Rodent” – National Academy of Sciences
• “Growing Out of a Caste – Reproduction and the Making of the Queen Mole-Rat” – Journal of Experimental Biology
• “The Molecular Basis of Acid Insensitivity in the African Naked Mole-Rat” – Science Magazine
• “Plasticity and Constraints on Social Evolution in African Mole-Rats: Ultimate and Proximate Factors” – Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society

Print:

• The Biology of the Naked Mole Rat by Paul Sherman

Super Amazing Adaptations & Delightful Beasts

Print:

• The Diversity of Life by Edward O. Wilson

Online:

• Fellatio by Fruit Bats Prolongs Copulation Time – PLoS One, 2009
  • Video (under “supporting information”)
• Bat predation by spiders – PLoS One 2013
• Bat metabolic efficiency and its connections to flight and aging – Mechanisms of Ageing and Development, Anja K. Brunet-Rossinni, University of Minnesota
• Bat AND bird lifespan as a consequence of metabolic adaptation – Ageing Research Reviews, 2010
• Feathered dinosaurs evolving coloration as a side effect of metabolism – Nature

Bizarre Freaks of Nature & Mutations That Shouldn’t Be

Print:

• The Making of the Fittest by Sean B. Carroll
• Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind by Gary Marcus
• The Flight of the Iguana: A Sidelong View of  Science and Nature by David Quammen
• Bomby the Bombardier Beetle by Hazel Rue
  

Online:

• Your Inner Fish – PBS Video

Stalk-Eyed and Bushy Tailed: A Crazy Little Thing Called Sexual Selection

Print:

• How they Do It by Robert Wallace

Online:

• Peacock spider dances to YMCA
• Cornell Lab of Ornithology birds of paradise project
• In Sexual Selection, Bigger is Better – at least in Fiddler Crabs – Southern Fried Science
• Other birds of paradise videos with the Voice of Nature (David Attenborough)
  • BBC Planet Earth – Birds of Paradise mating dance 
  • Astounding Mating Dance Birds of Paradise
• How To Dance Goth
• Skid Row, “I Remember You”

Printable PDF version, books only>

For each salon, we  invite our speakers to share the resources and interesting reading they came across in researching their talk, so that we can all dig more deeply. This reading list was compiled by Odd Salon with Danielle Normal Vincent, Chris Reeves, Chris Venter and Chris Carrico. Thank you!