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European lobster Homarus gammarus with eye detail showing curved lens Illustration from “30 Animals that made us smarter” by Patrick Ayree (BBC Books)

European lobster Homarus gammarus Illustration from “30 Animals that made us smarter” by Patrick Ayree (BBC Books)  

Blue mussels Mytilus edulis with byssal threads on wooden piling.  Illustration includes barnacles and limpets, and some bladder wrack seaweed.  Illustration from “30 Animals that made us smarter” by Patrick Ayree (BBC Books).

Ammonite Dactylioceras commune fossil similar to those collected by David Attenborough as a child

Garden snail Helix aspera line drawing in pen and ink cut to white

Topshell sketch in colour cut to whtie

Nautilus pompilius pen and ink stippled illustration

Giant pond snail Lymnaea stagnalis cut to white

Garden snail Helix aspera with grey body and yellow and brown shell cut to white

common cockle Cerastoderma edule pair of shells from one animal, cut to white

Diatom group showing diverse shapes and colours of these organisms

Salt marsh landscape showing mud and a cross section of the snails and invertebrates who live here, wading and predatory birds above in the glasswort and aquatic plants; further away from the salt estuary are soft cliffs and the distant sea

Stylized diagram of the duck egg showing chalaza, yolk, white, germination, membranes, and air pocket

Mallard Anas platyrhynchos duckling in the process of hatching from its egg, half in half our and exhausted with wet feathers

Pencil sketch comparing size of humming bird, ostrich, hen, and elephant bird

Stylized diagram of the development of a duck egg from being laid until after hatching hatched duckling chick

Stylized diagram of the development of a duck egg from being laid until after hatching duckling hatching half in half out of shell with prominent egg tooth

Stylized diagram of the development of a duck egg from being laid until after hatching day eight blood vessels carry waste and oxygen, eyelids start to cover eye, beak and egg tooth more clear.

Stylized diagram of the development of a duck egg from being laid until after hatching day five embryo separates from the yolk, blood vessel network grows and branchesm eye starts to get a colour.

Stylized diagram of the development of a duck egg from being laid until after hatching Day 27 hatchling squashed inside egg ready to hatch, air cell still shows

Stylized diagram of the development of a duck egg from being laid until after hatching day twelve feathers start to show eye covered with lid claws formed

Stylized diagram of the development of a duck egg from being laid until after hatching Day one yolk held in place with chalaza, germinal disc where fertilized chick starts to grow