For most people cockroaches, spiders, worms, dung beetles and hyenas are not paragons of beauty in a natural world; in fact, many would prefer that they were not there at all. But in this book an American science-writer who has won the Pulitzer Prize champions the cause of these "beasts" - the lowlifes and the brutes - in a series of articles, most of which appeared in "The New York Times", and which she has reworked into a single narrative. Aiming to convey the discoveries of contemporary biological science, the book offers a heartfelt plea for the preservation of nature on its own terms.