Richard's book is a major reimagining of how evolutionary forces work, revealing how mating preferences—what Darwin termed “the taste for the beautiful”—create an extraordinary range of ornament in the animal world. Prum introduces agency and perception as essential components for evolutionary processes and challenges the dogma that holds that natural selection explains every branch on the tree of life: which species thrive, which wither away to extinction, and what features each evolves.

We ask Richard about his unpublished work on pollination and bees to understand the influences of beauty and way the selection process is shaped by the memory of things beautiful ... or sometimes dangerous.

The Arboreal Apiculture Salon - A podcast exploring the science, beauty and spiritual expression of Abroreal Apiculture with Jonathan Powell from the Natural Beekeeping Trust and Michael Joshin Thiele from Apis Arborea and Cheyanna Bone.