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Zoology
General Works
Alexander C. Martin, Herbert S. Zim, and Albert L. Nelson, American Wildlife & Plants: A Guide to Wildlife Food Habits: The Use of Trees, Shrubs, Weeds and Herbs by Birds and Mammals of the United StatesA key tool for naturalists and ecologists, this book fills a niche occupied by no other. It gives a succinct summary of exactly what each of over 1000 species of birds and mammals eat, with special attention to plants used as food; and (in the second major section) what birds and mammals eat which genera of plants. Other books may list the general kinds of foods a particular animal eats, or give a general idea of how valuable a plant is as food for wildlife, but this book gets specific.
After about 40 pages of introductory material, the book is divided into two major sections: First, the wildlife entries, second the plant entries. The first part is divided into nine chapters, the first five of which divide bird species into convenient groups: waterbirds, marshbirds and shorebirds, upland gamebirds, songbirds, and birds of prey. The next three chapters are on mammals: fur and game, small, and hoofed browsers. The last chapter in the animal section briefly covers fish, amphibians, and reptiles in general terms. Most of the entries include range maps, and many include a detailed line drawing of the animal, and some include charts showing seasonal variations in proportions of plant foods eaten by each, based on studies of stomach contents. Plant foods are named and given ratings depending on how important each are to the species, annotated with seasonal variations and regional importance.
The next section covers plants useful to wildlife. They are listed by genus. The notes tell how many species belong to each genus and how many wildlife users they have. Then a list of bird and mammals species known to eat the plant is given, with ratings according to importance. As with the wildlife section, many entries are accompanied by line drawings and range maps.
A final chapter rates each wildlife plant genus according to value to wildlife. For example, among woody plants, oaks are used by more species of wildlife than any other. The rankings are further divided by region. In this section you learn, for example, that while oaks retain their number one ranking in the eastern and central states, they are ranked number two in the Pacific states and the Mountain-Desert region, replaced by pines.
Dover Publications, 1961 (first published 1951). 500 pages, illus., about 5½ x 8½ inches tall, paperback. New.
Item #480. Shipping weight: 1.3 lbs. Publisher’s price: $13.95. Your price: $12.55
Saelon Renkes and Steven Fend, Aquatic Animals of Henry W. Coe State Park An excellent introduction to the life forms (insects, amphibians, fish, etc.) which inhabit the streams, ponds, and puddles of this 81,000-acre park in the mountains southeast of San Jose, California. Illustrated with numerous line drawings and several photographs. Accurate, informative, and interesting!
Pine Ridge Association, 1999. 30 pages, saddle-stapled paperback. New.
Item #208. Shipping weight: 0.3 lbs. Publisher's price: $3.93. Your price: $3.54
Sonja I. Yoerg, Clever as a Fox: Animal Intelligence and What It Can Teach Us About Ourselves“In this lively and insightful investigation, Dr. Sonja Yoerg examines our many complicated, often incorrect, beliefs about animal intelligence. Why do we think that dolphins are so smart? Are dogs truly smarter than cats? Why do we consider mammals to be more intelligent than reptiles? Are predators more intelligent than prey?
“Beginning with the thorny question of what, precisely, intelligence is—the ability to learn, the ability to remember, the ability to survive, or a delicate combination of the three?—Dr. Yoerg attempts to determine what delineates instinct from intelligence. She draws on an elaborate scientific history, from B.F. Skinner’s behaviorism to evolutionary biology, to get to the real facts behind animal intelligence.
“Dr. Yoerg also reveals how media and religion have subtly but powerfully shaped our perceptions about animal intelligence, and how they continue to do so. By evaluating our complex relationships to animals—why we eat some animals while pampering others is often predicated on a commensurate belief in intelligence—Dr. Yoerg offers us a better understanding of our own ways of thinking. Entertaining and scrupulously researched, Clever as a Fox will challenge your previously held notions about animals and the measure of intelligence, both theirs and ours.”
Bloomsbury, 2001. 228 pages, about 6½ x 9½ inches, hardcover. New, remainder.
Item #535. Shipping weight: 1.2 lbs. Publisher’s price: $24.95. Your price: $5.50
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Need high-quality biological illustration, or just like looking at the same? View the website of Joy Fatooh, Illustrator, at fatooh.org/art. Joy is a wildlife biologist living and working in beautiful eastern California.
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