A beaver, eight bears and an extinct auk: species books are back - Beaver Land: How One Weird Rodent Made America by Leila Philip (2022) 352 pp., Twelve, Hachette Book Group, New York, USA. ISBN 978-1-5387-5520-4 (pbk), USD 19.99. - Eight Bears: Mythic Past and Imperiled Future by Gloria Dickie (2023) 272 pp., W. W. Norton & Company, New York, USA. ISBN 978-1-324-00508-7 (hbk), USD 30.00. - The Last of its Kind: The Search for the Great Auk and the Discovery of Extinction by Gísli Pálsson (2024) 328 pp., Princeton University Press, Princeton, USA. ISBN 978-0-691-23098-6 (hbk), USD 27.95.