On Robert Falcon Scott's tragic Antarctic expedition of 1910 George Murray Levick was the physician, and he passed the time by becoming the first man to study penguins up close. His findings were so shocking to Victorian morals that they were quickly suppressed and seemingly lost to history. A century later, Lloyd Spencer Davis explains how Levick's manuscript reveals not only an incredible survival story, but also the jumping-off point for major new insights into the underpinnings of evolutionary biology itself.

"Insightful and bawdy. Davis offers an absorbing history of his own Antarctic fieldwork and a glimpse into the private lives of Levick and several important polar explorers of the era. A timely illumination of a mysterious and vital ecosystem."—NYTBR