Lewis I. Held's 2014 account of evolutionary developmental biology ("evo-devo"), "How the Snake Lost its Legs: Curious Tales from the Frontier of Evo-Devo", noted that while Kipling's "Just So Stories" "offered fabulous tales about how the leopard got its spots, how the elephant got its trunk, and so forth remains one of the most popular children's books of all time", fables "are poor substitutes for real understanding." Held aimed "to blend Darwin's rigor with Kipling's whimsy", naming the many "Curious Tales" such as "How the Duck Got its Bill" in his book in the style of "Just So Stories", and observing that truth could be stranger than fiction.