MENNO SCHILTHUIZEN is a senior research scientist at Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands and professor of evolutionary biology at Leiden University. The author of more than 100 papers in scientific literature, he has also written more than 250 stories, columns, and articles for publications including New Scientist, Time, and Science. A frequent guest on radio and television, he is the author of three previous books: Frogs, Flies and Dandelions (2001), The Loom of Life (2008), and Nature’s Nether Regions (2014). Together with Iva Njunjic, he runs Taxon Expeditions, which organizes scientific expeditions for laypeople.

“Darwin Comes to Town casts a radical new light on the way we should think about evolution: that it is not always a slow, lumbering process measured in millions of years, but, in fact, something that can take place at relative light speed under certain circumstances. Say, when it must adapt to the ecological pressures put on its habitat (a planet) dominated by human action, and, specifically, the frenzy of the urban landscape. Menno Schilthuizen makes an extraordinarily convincing and elegant argument that, inside the restless laboratory of the modern city, nature has already begun to adapt and engineer its own urban ecosystems. But, significantly, that it is up to us to embrace, harness, and enable these natural forces for the future.”