Whales and Dolphins in Question - the Smithsonian Answer Book (Paperback)

This comprehensive book is a collective response to thousands of letters and phone calls received annually by the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. Students, teachers, and scientists all have amazingly varied questions about whales and dolphins, and the most revealing inquiries are presented here with detailed answers.

The collaborators on this book are ideally qualified: Smithsonian scientist James Mead is one of the world's leading whale scholars; Joy Gold researches questions on vertebrate zoology for the museum; and Flip Nicklin is a renowned cetacean photographer. They present the questions, definitive answers, and related full-color photographs in a nontraditional format that encourages browsing. How many fingers do whales have? Why do whales strand on beaches? Do dolphins protect humans from sharks? What does DNA reveal about the ancestry of cetaceans? The answers are given clearly, in both scientific and common language.

Certain to become a standard reference, Whales and Dolphins in Question is fourth in the Smithsonian Answer Book Series, which also includes Bats, Sharks, and Snakes in Question.