 Highbridge, a division of recorded books, presents Strange Survivors, How Organisms Attack and Defend in the Game of Life, by One R. Pagan. Read by Eric Martin. Introduction I want the very first words you hear from me to be an expression of how grateful I am that you chose this book. This is a wonderful time to be a science enthusiast. There are a plethora of popular science books for you to choose from, and yet here you are listening to mine. I hope you will enjoy it, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Why should you listen to this book? In a nutshell, because the living world is majestic and awe-inspiring, and because by learning about it we may also come to understand ourselves a bit better. It is as simple as that. Life on earth is, still, despite the breakneck pace of extinctions, majestically diverse and displays, in Charles Darwin's most famous words, endless forms, most beautiful and most wonderful. Biological life fills us with wonder with its unending mysteries, puzzling behaviors, breathtaking beauty, raw violence, and unexpected liaisons. However, beauty, majesty, and wonder are only part of the proverbial picture. Virtually every peculiar trait, every behavior, every colorful characteristic that makes the biological world so interesting to look at and entertaining to explore, evolved to confer practical benefits to the organisms displaying it. And many of those traits also offer us tools to improve our own chances of survival, whether directly, as with substances that prove useful in curing disease or otherwise improving human life, or indirectly, as knowledge that informs technological, engineering, or medical research. You see, we do not have to choose between wonder and practicality. With nature we can certainly have both. We humans are counted among those endless, beautiful forms Darwin spoke of. Moreover, whether we realize it or not, whether we like it or not, we are intimately connected to all the other life forms with which we share this planet. There is one characteristic in particular that we share with all life, a drive so fundamental that it is at the root of much of what we do and are. This drive has had many names over time, such as the will to live or preservation of the instinct. Personally, I prefer to call it the survival instinct. This instinct is an undeniable biological imperative and Sample complete. Ready to continue?