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List Price: £39.99
Our Price: £26.94
By WileyBlackwell
 Marine Mammal Biology: An Evolutionary Approach., 2003-12-05
An excellent review of all marine mammal research. First printed in 2002, this provides a easy to read comprehensive guide to the current literature, for any college or university students and other enthusiast with taxonomic knowledge. This is the first useful guide I have found with many of the alternatives being published much earlier. Ive personally found this useful for the recent completion of a BSc degree in Marine biology,and wish that I had found it for my earilier studies.
This book discuses all you might like to know about the marine mammals (cetaceans, pinnipeds, sirenians, and carinvores), from echo location, to migration, genetics, digestion, fossil records plus much more. It also has a comprehensive reference list for further reading or compling reports.
The only draw back is the simplistic illustrations in black and white.
Author:
David W. Macdonald
By HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
A compelling and highly informative read, 2007-08-25
This is without any doubt the most comprehensively written book on the red fox (vulpes vulpes) I've ever had the pleasure of reading.
The author, a former pupil of Hans Kruuk (more commonly remembered for his studies on spotted hyenas) writes with a mixture of humour and easily accessible information based on his own first hand experiences in following wild foxes and raising one in captivity. The book also includes a particularly interesting chapter on the habits of red foxes in Israel, comparing them to their British cousins.
A must have for fox-lovers (and haters alike! Know your enemy so to speak)
List Price: £23.00
Our Price: £20.24
Author:
J Mann
By Chicago University Press
Invaluable, 2002-10-01
An academic book aimed at students and researchers in cetology, behavioural and conservation ecology as well as readers with a serious interest in cetaceans. Cetacean Societies reviews the research on the social lives of whales and dolphins and aims to bring the study of cetaceans firmly into mainstream behavioural ecology and provide incentives for further research, accelerating the transition from taxon-focused to question-focused science, a transition which behavioural primatology underwent some twenty to thirty years ago, beginning in 1965 with Primate Behaviour: Field Studies on Monkeys and Apes (DeVore 1965).The book is sectioned into three parts; (1) The history and methods, long term studies, observational methods and innovative techniques of study into cetacean societies; (2) A profile of four species, bottlenose dolphins, killer whales, sperm whales and humpback whales; (3) Comparative studies, theory and conservation, covering aspects such as group living, reproductive strategies, communication, conservation, protection and management. Illustrated throughout with photographs, diagrams and appropriate representations of data from research studies, the book is written by some of the world's leading cetacean scientists. It is a treasure trove of references and absolutely invaluable for anyone wishing to make sense of the social lives of whales and dolphins. Ruth Searle
List Price: £9.99
Our Price: £114.74
Author:
Jonathan Scott, Angela Scott
By Collins
Amazing Read - Great for preparing for safari, 2006-03-16
I read this while on a photogrpahy safari in Tanzania with the purpose of photographing Cheetahs in the wild. It proved to be a great education and the photography is inspiring. Tips on where to go, the nature of the Cheetah helped in my efforts to track down this beautiful animal in the Serengeti.
List Price: £42.50
Our Price: £30.99
Author:
T. S. Kemp
By OUP Oxford
 Bones, bones, bones, 2008-10-25
I hope someone senior at Amazon reads this. It is high time Amazon got its act together and learned to distinguish, in its 'if you liked that you'll like this' e-mail ads, between different levels of non-fiction - in particular, between texts on aspects of the sciences written by professionals and intended for (1) the intelligent layman; (2) for other specialists; or (3) as textbooks for senior undergraduates or research students. The present book, I found to my disappointment, falls in categories (2) or (3); it is rich in technical terms and in particular assumes a familiarity with taxonomy and comparative skeletal anatomy and all those long Latin words. This is NOT intended as a criticism of Dr. Kemp, who has done what he set out to do for his intended audience, but of the publicity staff at Amazon. I am a retired academic chemist with a broad (though sometimes basic!) acquaintance with the other sciences, and I have to say that I got far more out of Donald Prothero's book on Tertiary mammals (even though understabably he does not deal with the mammals of the Mezozoic and their amniote predecessors), than from the present one. Amazon, pay attention!
One further point: even professionals, at any rate fledgling ones, may have difficulty visualizing the whole animal from a complete and articulated skeleton. I know paleontologists hate the kind of 'Life in the Jurassic' museum diorama which depicts beasts and plants convincingly but mixes individuals which were in fact separated in place or time or both; but I would have loved to have seen more sketches of the animals as they would have appeared in life, juxtaposed perhaps with the skeletons. The very few examples given in Kemp's book make one want more!
List Price: £90.00
Our Price: £70.52
Author:
Ronald M. Nowak
By The Johns Hopkins University Press
 Complete and accurate discussion of all the mammals., 1999-02-05
These two volumes provide scientifically accurate information about all the world's mammals, even the most obscure. There are black and white photographs of almost every species, although some of the images are not good quality. Generally the information on each animal covers where it is found, what it eats, social habits, information on mating and rearing young, and a detailed description of size, shape, weight, color, and other physical attributes. The writing is dry and uses a lot of scientific terms. There are extensive bibliographies of the scientific papers used to verify the accuracy of the information; this book is considered one of the best of its kind by scientists who study and work with mammals.
List Price: £17.95
Our Price: £17.95
Author:
Brian Briggs, David King
By BATBOX Ltd
Great book and CD combo, 2003-08-27
At 56 pages, this little book is a mine of information about bats. It is supplied with a 48-track CD of bat detector sounds of 13 of the 16 species of bats living in Britain today, as well as tones for calibrating your bat detector - very handy for complete beginners and enthusiasts alike.I was amazed by the first two pages in the book, called Bat Facts: for example, did you know that bats account for a quarter of all mammal species in the world, and make up half of our mammal population in Britain? If you love bats, this is great news. If not, bolt your windows! The rest of the book describes how to identify the kind of bats you are likely to encounter near your home. Briggs and King emphasise that it is fascinating detective work (hence the name of the book). Of course, the ultrasonic echolocation sounds that bats create to hunt for prey, brought into the human hearing range by various kinds of bat detectors, are the main clue, but there are many others described for each bat in the book - where they fly, how they fly, and where they tend to roost. There are three kinds of bat detector, and this book and the CD of recordings of typical echolocation calls, assume you have the heterodyne type, most common among enthusiasts and beginners. The book describes in simple detail how to develop the skill to interpret what you are hearing on a heterodyne detector. Bats are everywhere, and you have may rare bats living near you, particularly if you live in the West Country. My family have found a fantastic new hobby, and this book is a really good starting point. I wish it had all 16 UK bats (we do in Somerset), but I still give it 5 stars.
List Price: £29.99
Our Price: £21.00
Author:
Jonathan Kingdon
By A & C Black Publishers Ltd
best safari guide, 2008-05-20
Currently the best field guide to take on safari. I found most of the illustrations excellent, although some of the descriptions were rather light. Conversely, there is much information that does not really belong in a field guide - e.g. discussion of the evolutionary relationships of the various species.
Another gap not mentioned by other reviewers is that there are no aquatic mammals, including manatees as well as dolphins.
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