Dr Liana Joy Christensen was for five years editor of the wildlife and natural resources magazine Landscope. She has worked extensively with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), earning from them a citation for excellence in science journalism. Her nature essays have regularly appeared in anthologies and magazines such as Australasian GEO, and been excerpted in translation for both German and Korean GEOs. Her work is published in literary and scientific journals around the world, including Tawain, North America, the Netherlands and India.

Ian Faulkner is an illustrator, cartoonist and cartographer with over 25 years experience and a passion for natural history. He has been artist in residence at the Australian National University, and also cartographer at Australian Geographic Magazine, as well as undertaking work for The Australian Museum and Sydney’s Taronga Park Zoo.

Deadly Beautiful takes you on an entertaining and informative journey through a branch of the animal kingdom long feared – deadly animals. Snakes, crocodiles, spiders, sharks, octopuses, wolves, bears, tigers, hippopotamuses and many many more are explored in Deadly Beautiful; collected together not because of any zoological similarity but because they can and have killed humans.

Clear, up-to-date, scientifically accurate information about the natural history of these species is presented on each animal, examining their day-to-day existence, how they have developed the weapons they possess and how they use them for defence, for hunting and for making love.

Woven into the text are accounts of people’s close encounters with deadly animals — the good, the bad and the bizarre — as well as stories from myth and legend that have contributed to modern perceptions. In addition, realistic risk assessments are included, often in a gently humorous way; for example, how likely you are to die in your bed than be killed by a shark.

Deadly Beautiful will make the perfect gift for animal lovers or those simply fascinated by the animal kingdom.

Chapters include:

• A matter of scale: snakes
• Here be dragons: crocodiles, alligators and Komodo dragons
• Venomous virtue: spiders, scorpions and ticks
• Outrageous fortune: sharks and stingrays
• Beach and beyond: cone shells, blu-ringed octupuses, stonefish and box jellyfish
• Pack drill: Wolves, dingoes and coyotes
• The woods today: bears
• Big cat magic: tigers, lions, cougars, leopards and jaguars
• The deadly vegetarians: hippopotamuses, rhinoceroses, buffalo, bison, moose and elephants

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