Foreword by Stephen Jay Gould
Prologue
Search for undiscovered life
Immortal animals
Elfin farmers and cactophylic carpenters
Darkness and the cave of the jaguar
Winding path to field biology
Desert at the bottom of the world
Different actors, different scripts
Desert in the sky
Vampire and the phantoms of All Hallows' Eve
Land of the shah
Impenetrable land of thorns
Devil's town
In the shadow of the pyramids
Naming the anonymous
From howling wolf mice to fairy armadillos
Aridity's cornucopia
Life in the desert of salt
Land of diamonds
Epilogue.