Throughout the Middle Ages, enormously popular bestiaries presented people with descriptions of rare and unusual animals, typically paired with a moral or religious lesson. The real and the imaginary blended seamlessly in these books—at the time, the existence of a rhinoceros was as credible as a unicorn or dragon. Although audiences now scoff at the impossibility of mythological beasts, there remains an extraordinary willingness to suspend skepticism and believe wild stories about nature, particularly about insects and their relatives in the Phylum Arthropoda.
In The Earwig’s Tail, entomologist May Berenbaum and illustrator Jay Hosler draw on the powerful cultural symbols of these antiquated books to create a beautiful and witty bestiary of the insect world. Berenbaum’s compendium of tales is an alphabetical tour of modern myths that humorously illuminates aerodynamically unsound bees, ear-boring earwigs, and libido-enhancing Spanish flies. She tracks down the germ of scientific truth that inspires each insect urban legend and shares some wild biological lessons, which, because of the amazing nature of the insect world, can be more fantastic than even the mythic misperceptions.
The history of biology is populated by numerous model species or organisms. But few vertebrate groups have aided evolutionary and ecological research more than the live-bearing fishes of the family Poeciliidae. Found throughout tropical and subtropical waters, poeciliids exhibit a fascinating variety of reproductive specializations, including viviparity, matrotrophy, unisexual reproduction, and alternative mating strategies, making them ideal models for research on patterns and processes in ecology, behavior, and evolution.
Ecology and Evolution of Poeciliid Fishes is a much-needed overview of the scientific potential and understanding of these live-bearing fishes. Chapters by leading researchers take up a wide range of topics, including the evolution of unisexual reproduction, life in extreme environments, life-history evolution, and genetics. Designed to provide a single and highly approachable reference, Ecology and Evolution of Poeciliid Fishes will appeal to students and specialists interested in all aspects of evolutionary ecology.
Contributors include Warren B. Ballard, Arnold H. Boer, Anthony B. Bubenik, M. E. Buss, Kenneth N. Child, Vincent F.J. Crichton, Albert W. Franzmann, Kris J. Hundertmark, Patrick D. Karns, Murray W. Lankester, Richard E. McCabe, James M. Peek, Henry M. Reeves, Wayne L. Regelin, Lyle A. Renecker, William M. Samuel, Charles C. Schwartz, Robert W. Stewart, Ian D. Thompson, H. R. Timmermann, and Victor Van Ballenberghe. A Wildlife Management Institute book
When pulled from the mud of creeks, ponds, rivers, or the sea, the eel, with its slick, snake-like body, emerges as an extremely mundane and even unappealing fish. But don’t let the appearance fool you—the eel has been one of the world’s favorite foods since ancient Greece, and the eel’s life cycle is one of the most remarkable on the planet—during the middle ages, impoverished Londoners survived on eel and the eel later saved the Mayflower pilgrims from starvation on American shores.
In Eel, RichardSchweid chronicles the many facets of these slippery creatures from their natural history to their market value and contemporary consumption to their appearance in art and literature and finally to their present threatened status. So far, eels have steadfastly refused to reproduce in captivity, apparently requiring the vastness of the open ocean to successfully mature—which has imperiled the species’ long-term survival. Schweid explains that freshwater eels are born in remote ocean depths and make a journey of thousands of miles to fresh water where they spend most of their lives before making a return journey to the ocean to mate and die.
Well-illustrated and containing many little-known facts about this surprising fish, Eel will appeal to general readers of natural history and others wishing to discover something more about the common unagi on the sushi menu.
The beauty of the robin’s egg is not lost on the child who discovers the nest, nor on the collector of nature’s marvels. Such instances of wonder find fitting expression in the photographs of Rosamond Purcell, whose work captures the intricacy of nests and the aesthetic perfection of bird eggs. Mining the ornithological treasures of the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology, Purcell produces pictures as lovely and various as the artifacts she photographs. The dusky blue egg of an emu becomes a planet. A woodpecker’s nest bears an uncanny resemblance to a wooden shoe. A resourceful rock dove weaves together scrap metal and spent fireworks. A dreamscape of dancing monkeys emerges from the calligraphic markings of a murre egg.
Alongside Purcell’s photographs, Linnea Hall and René Corado offer an engaging history of egg collecting, the provenance of the specimens in the photographs, and the biology, conservation, and ecology of the birds that produced them. They highlight the scientific value that eggs and nest hold for understanding and conserving birds in the wild, as well as the aesthetic charge they carry for us.
How has evolution shaped the egg or directed the design of the nest? How do the photographs convey such infinitesimal and yet momentous happenstance? The objects in Egg & Nest are specimens of natural history, and in Purcell’s renderings, they are also the most natural art.
In The Empty Ocean, acclaimed author and artist Richard Ellis tells the story of our continued plunder of life in the sea and weighs the chances for its recovery. Through fascinating portraits of a wide array of creatures, he introduces us to the many forms of sea life that humans have fished, hunted, and collected over the centuries, from charismatic whales and dolphins to the lowly menhaden, from sea turtles to cod, tuna, and coral.
Rich in history, anecdote, and surprising fact, Richard Ellis’s descriptions bring to life the natural history of the various species, the threats they face, and the losses they have suffered. Killing has occurred on a truly stunning scale, with extinction all too often the result, leaving a once-teeming ocean greatly depleted. But the author also finds instances of hope and resilience, of species that have begun to make remarkable comebacks when given the opportunity.
Written with passion and grace, and illustrated with Richard Ellis’s own drawings, The Empty Ocean brings to a wide audience a compelling view of the damage we have caused to life in the sea and what we can do about it. "
A biological crossroads where temperate gives way to tropical and east blends into west, Florida has over twenty-five primary habitat types, several of which are unique to the state. Within these richly varied natural communities lives an astonishing abundance of animals and plants, making Florida one of the United States' most biologically diverse regions. At the same time, sadly, Florida is also one of the country's most ecologically imperiled regions, second only to California in the number of its animals and plants that have been federally designated as endangered or threatened.
This fully illustrated book is a comprehensive, yet convenient and easy-to-understand guide to Florida's endangered and threatened animals and the habitats that support them. Chris Scott covers all 71 species, subspecies, or populations of mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, crustaceans, insects, corals, and mollusks. His species accounts describe each animal's listed status, identifying characteristics, historical and current distribution, biology, current threats, and conservation efforts. To make the crucial link between animals and their habitats, Scott also includes extensive discussions of Florida's natural regions; human impacts on the environment, including habitat destruction, pollution, and the introduction of invasive, nonnative species; and ongoing efforts to conserve and restore native plant and animal communities. With this wealth of information available in no other single volume, everyone who cares about the natural environment can help preserve one of America's biological treasurehouses.
The Endangered Species Act at Thirty is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary review of issues surrounding the Endangered Species Act, with a specific focus on the act's actual implementation record over the past thirty years. The result of a unique, multi-year collaboration among stakeholder groups from across the political spectrum, the two volumes offer a dispassionate consideration of a highly polarized topic.
Renewing the ConservationPromise, Volume 1, puts the reader in a better position to make informed decisions about future directions in biodiversity conservation by elevating the policy debate from its current state of divisive polemics to a more-constructive analysis. It helps the reader understand how the Endangered Species Act has been implemented, the consequences of that implementation, and how the act could be changed to better serve the needs of both the species it is designed to protect and the people who must live within its mandates.
As debate over reforming the Endangered Species Act heats up in the coming months, these two books will be essential references for policy analysts and lawmakers; professionals involved with environmental law, science, or management; and academic researchers and students concerned with environmental law, policy, management, or science.
Amid the historical decimation of species around the globe, a new way into the language of loss
An endling is the last known individual of a species; when that individual dies, the species becomes extinct. These “last individuals” are poignant characters in the stories that humans tell themselves about today’s Anthropocene. In this evocative work, Lydia Pyne explores how discussion about endlings—how we tell their histories—draws on deep traditions of storytelling across a variety of narrative types that go well beyond the science of these species’ biology or their evolutionary history.
Endlings provides a useful and thoughtful discussion of species concepts: how species start and how (and why) they end, what it means to be a “charismatic” species, the effects of rewilding, and what makes species extinction different in this era. From Benjamin the thylacine to Celia the ibex to Lonesome George the Galápagos tortoise, endlings, Pyne shows, have the power to shape how we think about grief, mourning, and loss amid the world’s sixth mass extinction.
Energy Development and Wildlife Conservation in Western North America offers a road map for securing our energy future while safeguarding our heritage.
Contributors show how science can help craft solutions to conflicts between wildlife and energy development by delineating core areas, identifying landscapes that support viable populations, and forecasting future development scenarios to aid in conservation design. The book
The final section calls for a shift away from site-level management that has failed to mitigate cumulative impacts on wildlife populations toward broad-scale planning and implementation of conservation in priority landscapes. The book concludes by identifying ways that decision makers can remove roadblocks to conservation, and provides a blueprint for implementing conservation plans. Energy Development and Wildlife Conservation in Western North America is a must-have volume for elected officials, industry representatives, natural resource managers, conservation groups, and the public seeking to promote energy independence while at the same time protecting wildlife.
The alarm calls of birds make them difficult for predators to locate, while the howl of wolves and the croak of bullfrogs are designed to carry across long distances. From an engineer's perspective, how do such specialized adaptations among living things really work? And how does physics constrain evolution, channeling it in particular directions?
Writing with wit and a richly informed sense of wonder, Denny and McFadzean offer an expert look at animals as works of engineering, each exquisitely adapted to a specific manner of survival, whether that means spinning webs or flying across continents or hunting in the dark-or writing books. This particular book, containing more than a hundred illustrations, conveys clearly, for engineers and nonengineers alike, the physical principles underlying animal structure and behavior.
Pigeons, for instance-when understood as marvels of engineering-are flying remote sensors: they have wideband acoustical receivers, hi-res optics, magnetic sensing, and celestial navigation. Albatrosses expend little energy while traveling across vast southern oceans, by exploiting a technique known to glider pilots as dynamic soaring. Among insects, one species of fly can locate the source of a sound precisely, even though the fly itself is much smaller than the wavelength of the sound it hears. And that big-brained, upright Great Ape? Evolution has equipped us to figure out an important fact about the natural world: that there is more to life than engineering, but no life at all without it.
In this captivating collection of twelve essays, a testament to a lifetime’s fascination with the outdoors and its myriad wonders, naturalist Stephen Lyn Bales examines a variety of flora and fauna that in one way or another can be described as “ephemeral”—that is, fleeting, short-lived, or transient.
Focusing on his native East Tennessee, Bales introduces us to several oddities, including the ghost plant, a wispy vascular plant that resembles a rooster’s tail and grows mainly in areas devoid of sunlight; the Appalachian panda, an ancestor of today’s red panda that wandered the region millions of years ago and whose fossil remains have only recently been discovered; and the freshwater jellyfish, a tiny organism that is virtually invisible except for those hot summer days when clusters of them bloom into shimmering “medusae,” sometimes by the thousands. Other essays consider such topics as the plight of the monarch butterfly, a gorgeous insect whose populations have dropped by 90 percent in only the last two decades; the reintroduction of the lake sturgeon, one of nature’s most primitive and seldom-seen fish, into the waters of the Tennessee Valley; and the surprising emergence of coyote-wolf and coyote-dog hybrids in the eastern states.
Written with insight, humor, and heart, Ephemeral by Nature is as entertaining as it is instructive. Along with a wealth of biological details—and his own handsome pen-and-ink drawings—Bales fills the book with delightful anecdotes of field trips, species-protection efforts, and those thrilling occasions when some elusive member of the natural order shows itself to us, if only for a brief moment.
Stephen Lyn Bales, senior naturalist at Ijams Nature Center in Knoxville, is the author of Natural Histories: Stories from the Tennessee Valley and Ghost Birds: Jim Tanner and the Quest for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, 1935–1941, both published by the University of Tennessee Press.
Illegally harvested ivory and endangered plants, mammals, reptiles, birds, and even insects are easily found for sale throughout East and Southern Africa. And this is just one part of the multi-billion-dollar illegal global trade in wildlife.
Wildlife is an important and even vital asset for both intrinsic and economic reasons. Yet it is illegally exploited on a massive scale to the point where some species now risk extinction. Exploiting the Wilderness provides a concise overview of this shameful business, describing some of the main species being exploited and examining select wildlife whose survival is imperiled due to heavy pressure from poachers to meet consumer demand.
Greg Warchol draws on his firsthand experience and research in Africa to examine the structure and operation of the illegal trade in wildlife. He identifies the participants as well as their motivations and operations, and explains the behavior of poachers, traffickers, and consumers of illegally obtained goods. He concludes with a description of legislative and law enforcement efforts to control and prevent wildlife exploitation along with a number of contemporary conservation initiatives designed to improve the ability of rangers to protect wildlife.
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