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Under The Microscope

THE VARIETY OF LIFE by Colin Tudge; Oxford University Press, 2000; 704pp; $140

Reviewed by Vicki Hyde

It should come as no surprise that a book subtitled A survey and a celebration of all the creatures that have ever lived is a rather weighty tome (1.7 kg in fact!). If you're into biodiversity or classification, then this is the volume for you.

Tudge spends time assuring us that classification -- taxonomy, cladistics and the other arcane arts of slotting creatures into their right relationships -- is more than "simply a glorified exercise in filing". And if you take the time to read the extensive introduction in this work, you, too, will come to appreciate the important place held by such surveys, and the thought that goes into them.

The naming of parts may seem an easy thing and was, for many years, the foundation of classification. With the introduction of molecular and palaeontological studies, not to mention use of the helpful computer, things appear to have become a lot more complicated.

I've tended to assure my small children that if something is living, it's either a plant or an animal (I figured I'd explain about bacteria and fungi later). It's a simplification designed to try to get them to avoid the sort of blooper a certain former Minister of Agriculture made when he declared that the kiwi was not an animal but a bird! I know there is more to it than that, but it takes a work like this to demonstrate just how incomplete is our knowledge.

The bulk of Tudge's work is taken up with classification. For many, the careful survey of life in its infinite variety may be of interest only when required by formal education, but there is something strangely compelling in page after page of information of all forms of life. You are guaranteed to pick up new information on any page you care to open.

From the 18th century, our appreciation of the diversity of life has seen the number of recognised species climb from a few thousand to around two million. But wait, that's not all! There could be another 30 million creatures out there, and possibly much much more. The numbers are staggering in both sheer volume and in implications.

And it is the implications of such intense taxonomical study that ultimately have the most profound effects. Tudge notes this in discussing the ever-expanding circles of life and the odd leaps and links that bind apparently disparate organisms together. He states at the end of his introduction:

Phylogenetically we [human beings] are an outpost, a tiny figment of life, just as Earth is a cosmological nonentity

That's something worth considering as we examine our stewardship of this planet and the other lifeforms on it. Tudge argues that we have a responsibility to consider the implications of classification on conservation. It is information we ignore at our peril.

Vicki Hyde is the editor of New Zealand Science Monthly.