The Tapir's Morning Bath: Solving the Mysteries of the Tropical Rain Forest

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 336 pages
• Published by: Mariner Books November 4, 2002
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0618257586
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0618257584
• Book Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Weighs: 12.8 ounces

From Publishers Weekly
Royte, a contributing writer for Outside magazine who has also published in National Geographic, Harper's and Rolling Stone, spent a year with ecologists on Panama's Barro Colorado Island, after an earlier visit (for an article on famed biologist E.O. Wilson) sparked her curiosity about the research being conducted there. The result is this great book, a superb introduction to tropical ecology and theoretical biology, as well as original and thoroughly engaging travel writing. By hiring herself out as a research assistant at large, Royte gains intimacy with the professors and students at the island's research station and gradually gains acceptance into their world. She tracks a troop of spider monkeys with a lady whose research on their reproductive cycles holds the promise of being "quietly groundbreaking," spends nights in the tree canopy observing bats that build tents from leaves, and crouches on the forest floor to catalogue the social behavior of leaf-cutter ants. With humor, Royte describes the social hierarchies of the researchers and tourists who visit the island, in terms not dissimilar to those of the ecological studies the scientists themselves conduct. She wrestles with questions about the value of fieldwork amid mounting concerns worldwide about biodiversity and species extinction. This book illustrates how small breakthroughs do in fact occur, making the "mysterious and dim" tropical forest "just a tiny bit brighter." (Sept. 26) Forecast: While this title will be a must-read for professionals and armchair naturalists alike, Royte's winning combination of detail, expertise and engaging humor (along with an author tour) should draw in literate lay readers beyond the adventure set.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
While researching this book, Royte spent a year living and working intermittently with the ardent rainforest researchers on Barrow Colorado Island in the Panama Canal. A contributing writer to Outside magazine, Royte deftly describes these researchers and their work as well as the historical research done on the island and the history of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, which serves as a base camp for researchers on the island. Through stories about spider monkeys, tent-making bats, leaf-cutting ants, spiny rats, innumerable bugs, and even the movement of water in the ecosystem, Royte offers an great overview of the need for tropical research. She also discusses the decline of the generalist in the field of biology. Books like Marty Crump's In Search of the Golden Frog (LJ 5/15/00) and Margaret Lowman's Life in the Treetops (LJ 5/15/99) focus on the life-work of one particular scientist (Lowman includes a chapter on her own work on Barrow Colorado), while Royte combines the studies of many researchers, resulting in an introduction to the ecosystem. An great book for all libraries. Margaret Henderson, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Lib. and Archives, NY
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Reader Reviews
This review is from: The Tapir's Morning Bath: Mysteries of the Tropical Rain Forest and the Scientists Who Are Trying to Solve Them (Hardcover) In a lake in Panama sits a six square mile island, Barro Colorado, and there are permanent research and living facilities there which have made the island one of the best-studied patches of rainforest in the world. A wonderful book, _The Tapir's Morning Bath: Mysteries of the Tropical Rain Forest and the Scientists Who Are Trying to Solve Them_ (Houghton Mifflin) memorably shows what the scientists are up to. Elizabeth Royte is a journalist, not a naturalist, but she was not just taking notes but taking part. She ingratiated herself into the society of strange eggheads who loved fieldwork by simply making herself available as an extra pair of untrained but willing hands. Because of this we get to follow her on all sorts of recondite forays to coax the jungle to give up its secrets. She follows spider monkeys in order to catch their feces, which she bags so that they can be analyzed for hormones. She climbs out branches to hang insect traps, and counts ants. She drives a Boston whaler zooming around the lake so that a biologist perilously hanging off the front can net migrating moths, and she learns to sex the moths by squeezing their thoraces. She triangulates to find out where bats fly around in the dark. She climbs trees to help monitor the behavior of creeping vines that modify the forest. At one point, a newcomer naturalist comes into Royte's room, mistakenly thinking she has found a fellow naturalist: "Oh, hi. Hi. Do you happen to have a syringe smaller than 1 cc? I'm trying to inject some solution into a butterfly's ear canal and what I have is way too big." Royte is excited about all these tasks, and her enthusiasm is on every page of her book. In addition, she has humorous descriptions of the men and women working on the island, but playing as well, with Ultimate Frisbee one of the least controversial amusements. But it is their work that makes the book. One of them explains that if he were intent on conservation, he'd be doing other work to promote it directly, and that he is attempting something like pure thought: "I'm setting up this experiment as an exercise in thinking. I don't want a utilitarian reason for everything. Why do we need art? I feel the same way about basic science: It's good for us." Reading Royte's book is good for us, too. There is a wide array of scientific information presented here, and plenty of good humor, raconteurship, and insight into how science is done and what makes scientists do it. It is also a deeply personal document, as during the year Royte married (to someone back in the States), became pregnant, and found that her reflections on nature and on evolution were deepened by the embryo growing with her. This is a surprisingly moving book about scientific endeavor and the solving of puzzles within and puzzles without.