One of the great challenges in searching for life on other planets is that we still have so much to learn about life on our own Earth. Amazingly, that is true not only at the micro level of biochemistry and genetic codes, but at the macro level as well. You would think that there would be little left to learn about elephants, bears, penguins, and jaguars–the creatures sometimes lumped together by jaded zoologists as “charismatic megafauna”–but you would be wrong.

The new series “Hostile