Brilliant Beasts will scientifically investigate some of our best-known creatures. We put them under the microscope and test their abilities to the limits. These are creatures we think we know and we come into contact with them frequently, often in bizarre ways. We take these human interaction stories and bust apart how they happened. We deconstruct the abilities of the animals and find out what it was they were trying to do when they met with us instead.

Just how smart is man’s best friend? Scientists and trainers explore canine intelligence in surprising new ways, unlocking new clues about our faithful companions.

Pigeon Genius. Investigate some of the world's best-known and most-loved creatures as scientists put them under the microscope and test their abilities to the limit.

Here are scans of all 40 issues of the "Beasts & Beings" collection by Hachette Partworks.

Here are scans of all 40 issues of the "Beasts & Beings" collection by Hachette Partworks.

It s one of the most enduring mysteries of modern science. For sixty five million years, a vast array of fantastic creatures had roamed the prehistoric world. They were the Mega Beasts. The Mega Beasts had inherited the Earth from the dinosaurs. And, like the dinosaurs, they were every bit as fearsome and every bit as bizarre. But then the Beasts began to die; and no one knows why. In a brief moment of geological time at the end of the last Ice Age, hundreds of species simply disappeared: seventeen foot tall ground Sloths; giant woolly Mammoths; Madagascan Lemurs the size of gorillas; ferocious predators like Australia s Marsupial Lion. Some scientists say that what killed the Mega Beasts was Man; early human hunters could have made light work of these huge creatures using primitive but deadly weapons. Others disagree. They say that climate was the killer: at the end of the Ice Age, huge floods and devastating droughts could have wiped out an army of giant mammals. And eminent paleo-ecologist Dr David Burney takes us on a journey to Madagascar to uncover the fate of the huge gorilla-sized lemur. Virologists and vets from Africa to Australia also join this global quest to discover What killed the Mega Beasts?