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CBS News
20-07-2025
- CBS News
Book excerpt: "The Beast in the Clouds" by Nathalia Holt
We may receive an affiliate commission from anything you buy from this article. In the latest book by Nathalia Holt (the bestselling author of "Rise of the Rocket Girls"), two sons of Theodore Roosevelt set out for China on a quest to find a mythical creature: the giant panda. "The Beast in the Clouds" (Atria/One Signal) recounts the brothers' treacherous trek, and examines the implications their expedition posed towards these gentle animals. Read an excerpt below. "The Beast in the Clouds" by Nathalia Holt Prefer to listen? Audible has a 30-day free trial available right now. Two brothers smoothed a map on the table in front of them. The land they were examining was colored in greens, browns, and grays. Running across the map, like the stripes of a tiger, were irregular white blotches. Each blank space represented the unknown, a section of the map still unplotted and unexplored. The squiggly dotted line of a river, unknown printed in small text, cut through the white. It was 1928 and the world was still a checkerboard of wonder, the continents imperfectly mapped. Ted and Kermit Roosevelt, the two eldest sons of former president Theodore Roosevelt, were planning an adventure. Although they consulted maps from a diverse range of cartographers, including those drawn in China, the unexplored regions persisted. The vast Asian continent dappled with white spoke to them. The world was full of explorers, all examining maps like the ones the Roosevelts possessed. There was a heady, optimistic feeling that persisted among them. No one could be certain which mountain was the tallest on earth nor which trench in the ocean the deepest. Every expedition held the possibility of making its members world-famous explorers. The 1920s were a decade of discovery, as groups of scientists, adventurers, and hunters ventured forth into the wilderness to fill museum collections. They were successful: every large mammal on earth had been attained, and their bodies mounted in exhibits, except for one. The Roosevelts desired this one animal so acutely that they could barely speak about it with each other, much less anyone else. "We did not let even our close friends know," wrote Ted of their shared purpose. Some dreams sound too wild when spoken aloud. The animal the Roosevelt brothers coveted looked like no other species in the world. It was a black-and-white bear so rare that many people did not believe it was real. This legendary creature was called the giant panda. Rumors swirled about the mysterious animal. No one, not even naturalists who had worked in China all their lives, could say precisely where the creature lived, what it ate, or how it behaved. Brown, black, and polar bears had never been in doubt among humans. Even polar bears, although living in the remote reaches of the Arctic, were well known, and had been kept in zoos for thousands of years. In Egypt, King Ptolemy II had a polar bear in his zoo in Alexandria as early as 285 BC. In 1252, a polar bear was part of the Tower of London's extensive menagerie of beasts. Yet the same could not be said of the panda bear. Even among those living in the Republic of China, spanning some 7.7 percent of the earth's landmass, few had ever caught sight of the creature. Dozens of names were used to describe what might be a panda. In different dialects they called it "spotted bear," "giant bear cat," "white bear," and "bamboo bear," although no one could be sure that all these different names were referring to the same species. There were probable references to the giant panda in Chinese literature as early as the third century, although the descriptions were mythical, describing yellow-and-black creatures that munched on copper and iron. "While there are tantalizing stories implying that one Chinese emperor or another knew all about panda," wrote one author, "there's one great mystery. Why is there not a single rendition of this endearing beast in any of imperial China's illustrated natural histories?" From "The Beast in the Clouds" by Nathalia Holt, published by Atria/One Signal, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Copyright (c) 2025 by Nathalia Holt. All rights reserved. Get the book here: "The Beast in the Clouds" by Nathalia Holt Buy locally from For more info:
Spectator
02-07-2025
- Science
- Spectator
Could the giant panda be real?
Nathalia Holt's book begins irresistibly. The year is 1928. Two sons of Theodore Roosevelt called Ted and Kermit – yes I know we're thinking it's a Wes Anderson movie – have smoothed a map out on the table in front of them. Let's imagine the setting is a bit like the Explorers' Club in New York, with exotic anthropological curios on the walls – poisoned spears and wooden shields – and globes the size of beach balls lit up from within. The land they are examining is mainly coloured in greens, browns and greys. But running across the map, like the stripes of a tiger, are irregular white blotches. Each of these blank spaces represents terra incognita. This is China, or what was then known of it. And from somewhere deep within those blanks on the map have come persistent rumours of an animal so exotic and large it seems extraordinary nobody has reported on it properly before. The animal the Roosevelt brothers coveted looked like no other species in the world: a black-and-white bear so rare many people did not believe it was real. This legendary creature was called the giant panda. Rumours swirled about the mysterious animal. No one, not even naturalists who had worked in China all their lives, could say precisely where it lived, what it ate or how it behaved. For centuries the world had known about other strange bears. Ptolemy II of Egypt had a polar bear in his zoo in Alexandria as early as 285 BC. In 1252, a polar bear was part of the Tower of London's extensive menagerie. But the same could not be said of the panda. Even among those living in China, spanning some 7.7 per cent of Earth's landmass, few had ever caught sight of it. There was no rendition of this endearing beast in any of imperial China's illustrated natural histories stretching back millennia, despite its being such an obviously arresting subject. In 1916, a party of German explorers travelled to China and Tibet in search of it. But no matter how hard they looked, they could find no evidence. In the small village of Lianghoku, their leader, Walther Stozner, asked some local hunters to bring them pandas, dead or alive. The hunters returned with several dead ones, along with one very young living cub. The Germans tried to feed it milk, then a flour slurry, and finally sought out a human wet nurse, but all their efforts failed. A few days later it died. The Roosevelts set out to put this right. They had family form in such matters. Their father Teddy had mounted expeditions to the Amazon, in an age when American presidents could behave eccentrically – long past, of course. And it's hardly a spoiler to reveal that they succeeded, although with unintended consequences. The first pandas brought back to the United States all died in captivity, as their keepers did not know how to look after them. It is true that giant pandas are now the dazzling poster boys and girls of worldwide conservation; that they have been taken off the critically endangered list; and that, as earnest zoologists keep insisting, we should be 'remembering the protozoa' and less glamorous species. But pandas remain iconic for a reason, being waywardly perverse in their rare bamboo diet and equally herbivorous in their sexuality. In 1974, London Zoo attracted record crowds, so great was the excitement over the arrival of Chia Chia – 'Most Excellent and Very Good' – and Ching Ching. Holt's delightful, well-written book reminds us of a time when the world was full of explorers, all examining maps like the ones the Roosevelts possessed. There was a heady, optimistic feeling that persisted among them. No one could be certain which mountain was the tallest on Earth, nor which trench in the ocean the deepest. Every expedition held the possibility of making its members world-famous explorers. While those days are past, it would be dangerous to suppose we know the planet as well as we think. Every generation has assumed there was nothing left to find, and has been proved wrong. There may not be any unknown animals the size of giant pandas still out there; but there could be some interesting protozoa.
