Epidemiologist · Musician · Author of Our Wild Familiars

So synanthropes are animals that have adapted to human-modified environments, and the Greek translation essentially is together with humans, so synanthrope. And they're a fascinating subset of wild animals that they're all around us, but we don't really notice them. And so in this new book, I was excited about writing something that had to do with the natural world. I was excited about writing something that touched on climate change and the way that the world was changing, but maybe not with such a sort of dirgey approach or funereal approach. Something that actually explored the wonder of the world as it is and as we experience it around our communities in our cities and towns. And I had come across this word synanthrope in the research for my last book, The Invisible Siege, which was about the rise of coronaviruses and the long scientific journey to find cures for COVID-19, and it just kind of stuck with me. There is this connection, of course, between wild animals and viruses and lots of questions about the origin of SARS-2, the virus that spread COVID-19 and caused the pandemic. And while that's touched on in the book a little bit, the vast majority of what I was excited to write about was just what these animals are doing in our cities. How is it that wild animals, raccoons, coyotes, all kinds of birds and animals as fragile as bats… These are not just insects and earthworms and things like that. These are very large predators that have nevertheless found a way to survive among us. And that in and of itself I think is just an amazing story and what I explore in this book.