Ann Downer

What would you do if you found an alligator in your garage? Or if you spotted a mountain lion downtown? In cities and suburbs around the world, wild creatures are showing up where we least expect them. Not all of them arrive by accident, and some are here to stay. As the human population tops seven billion, animals are running out of space. Their natural habitats are surrounded and sometimes even replaced by highways, shopping centers, office parks,...

A shark, still in his egg case, sets out to determine what kind of shark he is.

When we think of intelligent creatures, we often think of vertebrates, or animals with spinal columns and relatively large brains. We don't usually think of invertebrates, or animals without a spine. But invertebrates can be astonishingly intelligent. These animals exhibit surprising feats of learning, memory, and problem-solving using their relatively simple, tiny brains some the size of a sesame seed or even smaller. In fact, some intelligent invertebrates...

When a thirteenth-century wizard confronts twenty-first century Boston while seeking his pet dragon, he is followed by a rival wizard and a very unhappy demon, but eleven-year-old Theodora Oglethorpe may hold the secret to setting everything right.

A close-up look at ponds formed by melting snow and spring rains and at the varied life that exists in them.