New York Times Bestseller! A delightful and quirky compendium of the Animal Kingdom’s more unfortunate truths, with over 150 hand-drawn illustrations. Ever wonder what a mayfly thinks of its one-day lifespan? (They’re curious what a sunset is.) Or how a jellyfish feels about not having a heart? (Sorry, but they’re not sorry.) This melancholy menagerie pairs the more unsavory facts of animal life with their hilarious thoughts and reactions. Sneakily informative, and wildly witty, SAD ANIMAL FACTS will have you crying with laughter.
Arranged logically to follow the most widely adopted course structure, this text will leave students with a full understanding of the unique structure, function, and living patterns of all vertebrates.
John H. Ostrom's expeditions to the Bighorn Basin of Wyoming and Montana in the 1960s resulted in discoveries and research that would change long-held concepts in paleontology. This fiftieth-anniversary edition of his now well-known description of the type specimen of Deinonychus antirrhopus revisits the work that redefined theropod dinosaurs as the intelligent, agile, and gregarious ancestors of modern birds and led in the late twentieth century to a renaissance in the study of dinosaurs and the evolution of flight.
Squirrels of the World, written by scientists with more than 100 years of collective experience studying these popular mammals, is the first comprehensive examination of all 285 species of squirrels worldwide. The authors reveal virtually every detail of the family Sciuridae, which includes ground squirrels, tree squirrels, flying squirrels, prairie dogs, and chipmunks. Each species—from the familiar gray squirrel of American backyards to the exotic and endangered woolly flying squirrel of Pakistan—is described in a detailed account that includes distinguishing characteristics, ecology, natural history, conservation status, and current threats to its existence. Squirrels of the World includes • stunning color photographs that document rare and unusual squirrels as well as common varieties• evolution, morphology, ecology, and conservation status• colorful range maps marking species distribution• images of the skull of each genus of squirrel• extensive references -- Lawrence Heaney, Curator and Head of the Division of Mammals, The Field Museum (Chicago)
This open access multi-authored book presents a 'state of the science' synthesis of knowledge on the biodiversity of Angola, based on sources in peer-reviewed journals, in books and where appropriate, unpublished official reports. The book identifies Angola as one of the most biologically diverse countries in Africa, but notes that its fauna, flora, habitats and the processes that drive the dynamics of its ecosystems are still very poorly researched and documented. This 'state of the science' synthesis is for the use of all students of Angola's biodiversity, and for those responsible for the planning, development and sustainable management of the country's living resources. The volume brings together the results of expeditions and research undertaken in Angola since the late eighteenth century, with emphasis on work conducted in the four decades since Angola's independence in 1975. The individual chapters have been written by leaders in their fields, and reviewed by peers familiar with the region.
The second installment in a planned three-volume series, this book provides the first substantive review of South American rodents published in over fifty years. Increases in the reach of field research and the variety of field survey methods, the introduction of bioinformatics, and the explosion of molecular-based genetic methodologies have all contributed to the revision of many phylogenetic relationships and to a doubling of the recognized diversity of South American rodents. The largest and most diverse mammalian order on Earth—and an increasingly threatened one—Rodentia is also of great ecological importance, and Rodents is both a timely and exhaustive reference on these ubiquitous creatures. From spiny mice and guinea pigs to the oversized capybara, this book covers all native rodents of South America, the continental islands of Trinidad and Tobago, and the Caribbean Netherlands off the Venezuelan coast. It includes identification keys and descriptions of all genera and species; comments on distribution; maps of localities; discussions of subspecies; and summaries of natural, taxonomic, and nomenclatural history. Rodents also contains a detailed list of cited literature and a separate gazetteer based on confirmed identifications from museum vouchers and the published literature.
The order Rodentia is the most abundant and successful group of mammals, and it has been a focal point of attention for compar ative and evolutionary biologists for many years. In addition, rodents are the most commonly used experimental mammals for bio medical research, and they have played a central role in investi gations of the genetic and molecular mechanisms of speciation in mammals. During recent decades, a tremendous amount of new data from various aspects of the biology of living and fossil rodents has been accumulated by specialists from different disciplines, ranging from molecular biology to paleontology. Paradoxically, our understanding of the possible evolutionary relationships among different rodent families, as well as the possible affinities of rodents with other eutherian mammals, has not kept pace with this information "explosion. " This abundance of new biological data has not been incorporated into a broad synthesis of rodent phylo geny, in part because of the difficulty for any single student of rodent evolution to evaluate the phylogenetic significance of new findings from such diverse disciplines as paleontology, embryology, comparative anatomy, molecular biology, and cytogenetics. The origin and subsequent radiation of the order Rodentia were based primarily on the acquisition of a key character complex: specializations of the incisors, cheek teeth, and associated mus culoskeletal features of the jaws and skull for gnawing and chewing.
