Cara Giaimo and Joshua Foer get curious about the natural world in ‘Atlas Obscura: Wild Life’ – Cambridge Day

In “Atlas Obscura: Wild Life: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Living Wonders,” science journalist Cara Giaimo turns an eye toward the wild. The book was written with Joshua Foer, co-founder of the website Atlas Obscura, and is in the latest in a trio of books by the company, an online publication that defines itself as “the definitive guide to the world’s hidden wonders.”

Foer

Full of an encyclopedia-style entries about everything from the secretive ghost dogs of the Amazon to the pink fairy armadillos of the Argentine desert, and covering topics you never knew you were curious about – the nuances of prairie dog language or a seemingly immortal tree, for instance – it’s a guide to the world’s most fascinating, unusual and least-understood flora and fauna. Giaimo is a former staff writer at Atlas Obscura who now covers our fellow species for publications such as The New York Times, The Plant and The Drift. “Atlas Obscura: Wild Life” comes out Tuesday, and Giaimo and Foer will speak at The Brattle Theatre that night. We interviewed Giaimo on Thursday; her words have been edited for length and clarity.

First there was the original “Atlas Obscura,” then “Gastro Obscura” and now “Wild Life.” How did this third project come about, and how did you get involved?

The Atlas Obscura books look at the world through the same lens: How can we see things in a way that inspires curiosity, surprise and pride in our world? I was approached to write this third book, and I immediately thought it was a great idea to look at nature through the Atlas Obscura lens, because there really is so much going on in the natural world – and in the nonhuman world more generally – that is incredibly exciting and interesting to know about. The natural world reveals so much about how our human world works, but it’s not necessarily something that people think about every day. When you walk down the street, you might see a pigeon or a squirrel, but most people don’t think further than that. Or even when you’re traveling, there are so many amazing things to see in nature and so many ways to learn about local ecosystems and understand how they play into the history of human culture (not to mention how cool they are on their own). I was really excited for the opportunity to take that Atlas Obscura mission and apply it to the natural world.

How did your own interest in the natural world begin? 

I have been interested in other species for as long as I can remember. I grew up outside of Boston, and I have very vivid memories of exploring with my dad and spending a lot of time outside. I remember always being so fascinated by the fact that we share the planet and our own habitat with what are essentially alien intelligences all around us, from plants and bugs through birds and mammals. It’s fascinating to me to think about how all of these creatures experience the world and what their lives are like. I’ll never get bored of learning about that.

How did you begin this massive undertaking?

In a way, I started it without knowing. I graduated from MIT with my master’s in science writing in 2015 and started working for Atlas Obscura. I was there for a few years, then freelancing for a few years, but throughout, I was collecting and writing about things I found interesting. So when I started the book, I already knew enough to make a big list of things I wanted to include. As I was writing, I discovered a lot of other things I wanted to include. 

We asked freelance contributors to write different sections of the book; ultimately over 100 did. People pitched ideas from all over the world. Also, and this is actually one of my favorite parts of the book, in addition to the encyclopedia-style entries about different species, we have first-person interviews with different kinds of experts: not only scientists, but all kinds of people who work with animals and plants and fungi in different ways. 

How did you decide what to include?

It’s sort of like a collage-style project. I do have this enormous color-coded spreadsheet at this point that has every single thing, but there’s truly just so much out there. Conveying a complete picture of the world is pretty much an impossible task; this book is supposed to get across, if not a complete picture of the world, a representative picture of this aspect of the world. I knew I wanted the finished product to be diverse in respect to geography and in terms of the types of life forms included, from microbes to animals to insects to plants to fungi. Of course it’s not really representative in that way, because if it was truly proportional, it would be almost completely microbes, but I tried to get a good balance. 

In terms of what to include, I asked myself a few questions. Why are these things interesting? Do they have an interesting behavior or do they have an interesting evolutionary history? Do they play a role in human culture? I wanted it to be surprising on every page, and that meant including all kinds of things – many different species from many different parts of the world inspiring many different points of wonder.

In the years you’ve spent on this, is there some particularly amazing fact or finding you’ll never forget?

It’s so hard to decide – every time I do an interview I feel like I’m trying to pick my very favorite ice cream flavor, it’s just so hard to choose. One animal, the spider-tailed horned viper, is so insane that I still can’t really believe it’s real. Basically, over time and evolutionary history, this snake has evolved a tail that looks exactly like a spider. It’s completely uncanny, to the extent that biologists who unearthed an old specimen in a museum thought the snake had accidentally been preserved with a spider attached to it. It’s a very cool example of evolution driving an animal to have a really cool adaptation. In this case, the spider lures birds, then the snake eats the birds.You can see this in other animals too, like fish who have wiggly tongues that look like worms to attract smaller fish, but this one is just so incredibly detailed and ornate. I love looking at it and thinking about how this snake must feel so lucky to have a built-in lure.

Cara Giaimo and Joshua Foer present “Atlas Obscura: Wild Life: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Living Wonders” at 6 p.m. Tuesday at The Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St., Harvard Square, Cambridge in a Harvard Book Store event. $10, or $45 with a copy of the book. Information is here.