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A Biologist's Plea To Hollywood: Make 'Real' Animals The Stars

via wikimedia commons

Turbo is a big budget, animated, kid’s comedy about a snail’s dream to win the Indy 500, though the movie didn’t do as well as studios had hoped, one ecologist thinks it failed on a different level – accuracy. Fictional talking snail aside, Marlene Zuk argues that Turbo was another example in a long line of movies that misrepresent the biology of the animal kingdom. Marlene Zuk is an evolutionary biologist and behavioral ecologist and currently teaches at the University of Minnesota. Her recent opinion piece in the L.A. Times: “Animals to Hollywood: Get it Right” discusses the egregious errors filmmakers make when it comes to animals.

Virginia Prescott is the Gracie Award-winning host of Word of Mouth, Civics 101, The 10-Minute Writers Workshop podcasts, and the Writers on A New England Stage series on New Hampshire Public Radio. Prior to joining NHPR, she was editor, producer, and director for NPR programs On Point and Here & Now, and directed interactive media for New York Public Radio.
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