" Think
of
all
the different kinds
of living things in the world.
Cats and dogs,
elms and oaks,
birds and bugs,
ferns and mushrooms,
spiders and elephants--
you could go on naming them,
for there are more than a billion
different kinds
of living things.
What a marvelous assortment of creatures populate the Earth!
Giants like the whales and the redwood trees,
and tiny plants and animals that can't be seen with the naked eye.
So many different sizes and shapes!
A thousand science-fiction writers couldn't imagine them all.
Biology is full of surprises.
As you learn its secrets,
you find out how
plants and animals
keep alive and grow.
And not only that.
You see how
you yourself
are like every other creature in some ways,
but different in others.
You
discover just where
you
fit among
the world's billions of living things. "