Amazing Numbers in Biology, by Rainer Flindt

TRY this for a little-known fact: a giant squid’s eyeball is nearly half a metre in diameter. You may also be unaware that the oldest crow reportedly lived to 118; that freshwater mussels and giant clams can live to 100; that midges beat their wings more than 1000 times a second; that the intestinal muscle of a turtle takes 30 seconds to contract, compared with 8 milliseconds for the wing muscle of a hummingbird; and that the fruit of the tropical liana catapults its seeds 15 metres. We don’t often recommend books consisting entirely of statistics, but this one has a treat on every page.…