Michael Delany, former professor of environmental science at the University of Bradford, had numerous brushes with danger as he researched small rodents in the Gulf of Mexico, Florida, Uganda, Arabia and the British Isles.
But perhaps the scariest experience detailed in his new book, Animal Quest: a Naturalist on Four Continents, involved his wife, Audrey, requesting more rice at a formal buffet in Kampala. The man she thought was a waiter turned out to be Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.