Carnivores of the World
By Luke Hunter & Priscilla Barrett
This book is described as a field guide, but, although a lovely book, a field guide it is not. Why would you want a hardback fieldguide that covers polar bears, red pandas, jaguars and Palawan stink badgers is anyones guess (what a fantastic trip taht would be), with no distribution maps (as ever - we like maps).
However, once you are over the fact that is not a fieldguide, it is a very acceptable book. Covering all 250 of the world's land-based carnivores, with in depth descriptions, behaviours, habitats, feeding ecology, social patterns, conservation status, distribution and more. Each species is illustrated on colour plates (specially commissioned by top wildlife artist Priscilla Barrett) and, and we like this bit, black and white drawings of all their skulls and footprints (this would be useful in the field).
This book is worth just flicking through occasionally to look at stuff you didn't know, like;
- Lesser Grison live in southern South America and eat small mammals, birds and reptiles.
- Palawan stink badgers are slightly smaller than Sunda stink badgers
- Not much is known about Humboldt's Hog-nosed skunks
- Fishing cats can swim underwater
RRP £24.99 (Hardback)
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