Hidden Creatures: Luscious Leeches, Bashful Botflies, and the Wondrous, History-Shaping World of Parasites

Hidden Creatures: Luscious Leeches, Bashful Botflies, and the Wondrous, History-Shaping World of Parasites

$36.00

Biographical Note: DINO MARTINS is an award-winning entomologist and evolutionary biologist. A professor at Stony Brook University, he has served as the director of the Turkana Basin Institute in Kenya, founded by Dr. Richard Leakey,...

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Biographical Note:
DINO MARTINS is an award-winning entomologist and evolutionary biologist. A professor at Stony Brook University, he has served as the director of the Turkana Basin Institute in Kenya, founded by Dr. Richard Leakey, and previously as the director of the Mpala Research Centre. He holds a PhD in organismic and evolutionary biology from Harvard University. His research and writing have been featured in Smithsonian Magazine, The Guardian, Granta, and National Geographic and on TED and the BBC. He lives on Long Island and in Malindi, Kenya.

Review Quotes:
"There's an undeniable appeal to learning about creatures we can't see or even feel but that have such a huge effect on our health and well-being--and that's not to mention the charming eccentrics who study them." -- The Boston Globe

"An astonishing, eye-opening, and inspiring guide to the world's microscopic marvels, showing how much we can learn from looking closely at the things we fear, and the beauty of nature's hidden mechanisms. Wonderfully revolting and utterly fascinating, it is a thrilling tribute to the interconnectedness of life, full of awe-inspiring detail and gripping facts. It will make you want to rush out and look at puddles through a magnifying glass. Your world will be larger for reading this book." --Chloe Dalton, author of Raising Hare

"Only one man--the uniquely gifted storyteller, exquisitely observant naturalist, and skilled artist Dino Martins--could make the (OK, disgusting) subject of parasites simply sing with fascinating horror. Hidden Creatures presents us with the vampires, hijackers, and other evil geniuses of the natural world who are continually doing their nastiest, best work around and inside us. It's a gripping page-turner, and you will certainly wash your hands before your next meal." --Carl Safina, author of Beyond Words and Alfie and Me

"Dino Martins' genius is to make you care about the world's most despised and disgusting creatures--and find them fascinating, vital, and even beautiful. A mind-blowing, eye-watering revelation of a book." --Isabella Tree, author of Wilding

"In Hidden Creatures, Martins brings the reader nose-to-glass, up close to a universe in miniature. If you've ever been bitten by a mosquito, plucked a tick or a flea from your dog, dealt with a kid with nits, or suffered an unwelcome bout of intestinal visitors, you'll find yourself compelled by how these encounters unfold and the ways in which these tiny organisms shape entire ecosystems. Hidden Creatures is nature storytelling at its most compulsive--revealing the hidden dramas playing out in backyards, bodies, bloodstreams, and beyond." --Aminatta Forna, author of The Memory of Love

"Martins invites us to reconsider our boundaries, our assumptions, and our own place within nature's intricate and sometimes mysterious design. Hidden Creatures is deep scholarship animated by story, and story grounded in science, carried through a rare, beautiful, and much-awaited voice. A bold and singular literary achievement." --Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, Caine Prize-winning author of Dust and The Dragonfly Sea
"Martins is a lover of life and a born teacher. Hidden Creatures is about the interconnectedness of life. It is an important and profoundly penetrating book that should be in the libraries of every school, university, and laboratory." --Jonathan Kingdon, author of East African Mammals

"A fascinating, loving book about the mysterious, vital, and complex lives of the parasites that live under your feet and in your hair. Hidden Creatures is full of stories--atmospheric, hugely informative, and absolutely disgusting. I loved it." --Daisy Hildyard, author of The Second Body

"Fascinating and profound and cheerfully written. . . . Life would not exist if not for the parasites that prey on it, and recycle it, is this book's mantra. Throughout it all, Martins is an enthusiastic guide. . . . A gorgeous (if squirm-inducing) book on the awe-inspiring ways that 'well and truly life begets death and death begets life.'" --Kirkus Review

"An enlightening overview of parasites. . . . Simultaneously repulsive and intriguing, this will strike a chord with the insatiably curious." --Publishers Weekly

Publisher Marketing:
Welcome to the hidden, squirming world of parasites--some of the most misunderstood creatures with whom we share the Earth (and our bodies).

"Astonishing, eye-opening, and inspiring." --Chloe Dalton, author of Raising Hare

There is the tapeworm, which can grow 120 feet in length within the gut of a whale; the tsetse fly, a notorious vector of disease that can pierce the skin even of crocodiles with its needle-like mouth; and the most universal symbol of parasitic behavior: the leech. Long villainized as, well, parasitic, these creatures are actually a vital part of every ecosystem--and Dr. Dino Martins, an award-winning entomologist and biologist from Kenya, has made it his life's mission to demystify these beguiling beings.

Hidden Creatures is a journey across the world ten times over--from Martins's home in the wilds of East Africa to the rainforests of Borneo to cities and backyards across the globe. Along the way we encounter brilliant and eccentric experts who join Martins on his adventures to investigate not only parasites but their hosts, from hyraxes and hippos to, of course, humans.

Immersive, driven by an utterly infectious curiosity, and sure to transform every reader's understanding of these organisms, Hidden Creatures has the magnetic force of a David Attenborough documentary and introduces a monumental, charming new voice in science writing.

Review Citations:

  • Kirkus Reviews 05/01/2026 (EAN 9780593804667, Hardcover)
  • Publishers Weekly 05/04/2026 (EAN 9780593804667, Hardcover)