Oswald and Oliver Deuce are brothers, separated siamese twins, both professional zoologists. Their wives get killed in the same car accident. The driver of the other car, Alba Bewick, survives the accident but has to have her leg amputated. The Deuce brothers become obsessed by the process of life forms disintegration, as they are making tests on animals, while Alba, now only having one foot, becomes obsesses with symmetry. She starts a love affair with both brothers, gets pregnant and gives life to twins… Greenaway uses this symmetrical plot in order to explore relations between biology and esthetics, bringing forth several alternative taxonomies for classifying life (Alba’s plans to have enough children so that she can give name each by letters of the Greek alphabet, etc.). Simultaneously, the Deuce brothers are obsessed by an opposite process – bringing all creatures back into the unidentifiable matter (Ooze – opposite of Zoo), in which there are no more worries about classification, differentiation, beauty, desire, and evolution itself.