In its variety and drive to persist, life offers no end of surprises. Consider the Belizean bulldog bat, one of the dozens of organisms profiled in Life: Extraordinary Animals, Extreme Behavior, the companion volume to the Discovery Channel/BBC series. With its powers of echolocation, the bat can detect small fish just below the surface of a river and, using feet like grappling hooks, snatch them from the water. The seeds of Alsomitra metacarpa, a climbing gourd from Borneo, are the envy of aircraft designers. Each seed rests inside what looks like the transparent wing of a butterfly; it glides on the breeze, soaring, diving, and soaring again. Life is a carnival of marvels: African cheetahs to Antarctic sea anemones; dragon’s-blood trees to Komodo dragons. Earth is home to millions of species, of course, each the embodiment of eons of struggle and adaptation. In limiting its focus to a relative few, Life provides a detailed -- and panoramic -- study of the biodiversity we must protect.