David Quammen is the best-selling author of a dozen fiction and non-fiction books, including The Song of the Dodo, The Reluctant Mr Darwin and Spillover, which was a finalist for the US National Book Critics Circle Award and a Scientific American Book of the Year. He is a contributing writer for National Geographic and has written award-winning essays for Outside, Esquire, The Atlantic and Rolling Stone. He travels widely on assignment, usually to jungles, mountains, remote islands and swamps.