Nick grew up in the UK on a diet of David Attenborough documentaries and hand-me-down Sega games before reading ecology at Leeds University. He moved to beautiful Bristol to research the ancient mammals that lived during the time of the dinosaurs, before he wrote a PhD in the Department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge.

He worked at the BBC Natural History Unit and then the Natural History Museum, London before science-ing at the Zoological Society London (on venomous mammals and Indonesian biodiversity) and University College London, where he occasionally teaches.

As well as writing for children, he works as a zoological consultant and organises scientific meetings at the Royal Society. His favourite animals are lowland streaked tenrecs, and he has an aversion to cobras (after one very nearly bit him on his bottom when he wasn't paying attention).