Synopses & Reviews
The Kingdon Field Guide to African Mammals is the essential companion for anyone going on safari or interested in African mammals--no other field guide covers the whole continent in a portable format. Now fully revised and updated, it covers all known species of African land mammals and features 780 stunning color illustrations. Detailed species accounts describe key identification features, distribution, habitat, food, behavior, adaptations, and conservation status. Coverage of several of the more complex groups of small mammals is simplified by reference to genera, and there are introductory profiles of each mammal group and more than 500 maps. This new edition includes many newly recognized species, and classification has been fully updated.
Written and illustrated by a world authority, The Kingdon Field Guide to African Mammals is a must-have guide for travelers and armchair naturalists alike.
- Covers more than 1,100 species
- Features 780 color illustrations
- Describes key identification features, distribution, habitat, food, behavior, adaptations, and status
- Includes many newly recognized species, and classification has been fully updated
Review
Praise for the previous edition: "Travellers and students of wildlife should take notice--this volume sets the standard for the field. . . . A childhood in British East Africa and more than 25 years of producing atlases of the mammals have equipped Kingdon with a possibly unrivaled knowledge of his subjects, and this yields unusual and thought-provoking insights. . . . As an artist and sculptor who works in abstract, impressionistic and illustrative styles, Kingdon brings an immediacy to his drawings that escapes all other field guides. . . . The 1150 or so mammals that earn a place in his book are not just represented by the usual police-style profiles, but also by pictures of gripping emotion and playful naughtiness--usually several, sometimes many, for each species. . . . Buy this book for yourself and for anyone else who likes nature just to know that you possess several thousand of Kingdon's wonderful drawings. . . . This is quite simply a superb and authoritative work by an author of unsurpassed credentials and talent for his task. Everybody will delight in it."--Mark Pagel, Nature
Review
Praise for the previous edition: "For anyone planning an African safari, this guide should be as essential as binoculars."--David Tomlinson, New Scientist
Review
Praise for the previous edition: "All naturalists resident in or visiting the continent should have a copy. It is much more than a field guide."--Jeremy J. D. Greenwood, Habitat
Review
Praise for the previous edition: "This is an exquisite book to have, even if you have no intention to ever visit Africa (but then you are likely to change your mind after this Kingdon experience)."--Hans Kruuk, Mammal News
Review
Praise for the previous edition: "Since the appearance of his seven-volume encyclopaedia of East African mammals in the 1970's, Kingdon has become a figure of high distinction in conservationist circles. His extraordinary talents as a writer and painter have been dedicated to astonishingly beautiful and detailed records of African fauna and the ecosystems that sustain them. This makes his new field guide rather more than a handbook. . . . The richness of information is exemplary. The illustrations would make a big cat purr. . . . . It is one of Kingdon's strengths, both as a naturalist and as an artist, that he is interested in how animals look and feel to each other. . . . His drawings and paintings stress the elegant functionality of body geometry, the way animals use facial and body patterns for visual signalling."--John Ryle, Guardian
Review
Praise for the previous edition: "This is a handy, nicely prepared pocket field guide covering every species of terrestrial African mammal and is the essential reference work to be carried along by anyone traveling in Africa."--Rovert E. Hoopes, Wildlife Activist
Review
Praise for the previous edition: "Travellers and students of wildlife should take notice--this volume sets the standard for the field. . . . This is quite simply a superb and authoritative work by an author of unsurpassed credentials and talent for his task. Everybody will delight in it."--Mark Pagel, Nature
Review
Praise for the previous edition: "This is an exquisite book to have, even if you have no intention to ever visit Africa (but then you are likely to change your mind after this Kingdon experience)."
--Hans Kruuk, Mammal News
Review
Praise for the previous edition: "The richness of information is exemplary. The illustrations would make a big cat purr."--John Ryle, Guardian
Review
"This is an exquisite resource. . . . Kingdon has produced a thoroughly researched and beautifully composed field guide. Certainly, if you plan to go to Africa to observe wildlife, this is a 'must have' resource."--DRK, Wildlife Activist
Synopsis
The definitive guide to African mammals--now fully revised and updated
The Kingdon Field Guide to African Mammals is the essential companion for anyone going on safari or interested in African mammals--no other field guide covers the whole continent in a portable format. Now fully revised and updated, it covers all known species of African land mammals and features 780 stunning color illustrations. Detailed species accounts describe key identification features, distribution, habitat, food, behavior, adaptations, and conservation status. Coverage of several of the more complex groups of small mammals is simplified by reference to genera, and there are introductory profiles of each mammal group and more than 500 maps. This new edition includes many newly recognized species, and classification has been fully updated.
Written and illustrated by a world authority, The Kingdon Field Guide to African Mammals is a must-have guide for travelers and armchair naturalists alike.
- Covers more than 1,100 species
- Features 780 color illustrations
- Describes key identification features, distribution, habitat, food, behavior, adaptations, and status
- Includes many newly recognized species, and classification has been fully updated
About the Author
Jonathan Kingdon is one of the worlds foremost authorities on African mammals. His books include The Kingdon Pocket Guide to African Mammals and Lowly Origin: Where, When, and Why Our Ancestors First Stood Up (both Princeton).
Table of Contents
Preface and acknowledgements 6
Checklist of species 8
Introduction to the first edition 20
Introduction to the second edition 21
Naming and mapping species 23
Using this guide 27
Finding and recording mammals 28
The African environment 30
The past 30
Physical landscape 36
Vegetation 37
PROFILES OF ALL MAMMAL SPECIES 45
Conservation 619
Further reading 624
Glossary 625
Index 632