★ Meet the web’s favorite “capybara” in book form—the world’s biggest rodent and its cutest clan, ready to go viral in China.
★ Written by a Ph.D. biologist from the Russian Academy of Sciences who packs every spread with jaw-dropping facts and giggles.
★ Award-winning illustrator (“Image of the Book” prize) fills every page with full-color art that makes evolution visible at a glance.
★ From desert leapers to Arctic diggers, 11-month sleepers to disease-fighting heroes—kids finish as instant animal experts.
★ Perfect gift for anyone who likes their science fluffy, funny and fact-packed.

All life on Earth shares one ancestor. This book stars the capybara—the planet’s largest rodent—plus rabbits, monkeys… yes, they’re all cousins! Spread across the globe, rodents can nap for 11 straight months or stay winter-active, ruin crops or save lives. What glues them to the same family tree? Which super-power belongs to whom? Turn the last page and you’ll know.

【Author】Anna Novikovskaya – Ph.D. biologist, NSU graduate, researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Systematics & Ecology of Animals; author of rodent-behavior papers and popular-science articles.

【Illustrator】 Anna Bogdanova – award-winning printmaker & digital artist, “Image of the Book” diploma, regular at St. Petersburg Mors Festival.

2 Who are rodents and why are they our close kin?
4 Rodent roll call
6 Run, glide, swim, dig!
8 Where do rodents live?
10 Rodent record-breakers
12 Capybara
14 Naked mole-rat
16 Grasshopper mouse
18 Olkhon rock vole
19 House mouse
20 Little ground squirrel
22 Golden-bellied water rat
24 Garden dormouse
25 European water vole
26 Rabbits & hares—next-door relatives
28 Tailless rabbit
29 Pygmy rabbit
30 Hispid hare
31 Striped rabbit
32 Altai shrew
33 Collared lemming
34 Chimps are rat-cousins—meet the distant relatives
36 Common tree shrew
37 Philippine colugo
38 Cat-lemur
39 Night monkey
40 Japanese macaque
41 Bonobo
42 Extinct kin: which rodents roamed Earth long ago?
44 Ceratogaulus, Josephoartigasia, Castoroides
46 St. Lucia hamster, bulldog rat, hutia
48 Rodents—the good, the bad, the unbelievable
50 Rats: plague spreaders and disease detectives
52 Hamsters in the field and on our sofas