E O Wilson (1929-2021) is an American biologist, the inventor of sociobiology, a lover of ants, and a gifted writer who twice won the Pulitzer Prize and first warned us of the dangers of biodiversity loss. I took the found poem below from The Diversity of Life published in 1992. Wilson in his taxonomic diagnosis is thinking what distinguishes this strange creature from the apes from which it is descended.

A strange creature: a found poem by E O Wilson

Its taxonomic diagnosis is extraordinary: 

Brain 3.2 times larger than in an ape of human size, housed in a wobbly spherical skull; 

Jaw and teeth feeble; 

Body borne erect on elongated hindlegs; 

Skin mostly hairless except for patches that warm the head and display the genitalia; 

Internal organs supported by a basin-shaped pelvis; 

Thumb abnormally long for a primate, turning the hand into a specialized device for handling tools; 

Mind fashioned from symbolic language and semantic memory with the aid of elaborate speech-control centers located in the parietal cortex.