1: An excellent guide
This book is an excellent guide to the 500 mammal species that live in mainland Southeast Asia. Every species is described in detail with key identification features, ecology, habitat, distribution, and status. There are 72 high-quality color plates and 422 very good distribution maps. 74 excellent line drawings illustrate animal tracks and other technical details.
There are still discoveries to be made in the area. For example, Charles Francis was part of the team that found a lactating male bat; from "The New York Times":
"Scientists casting their nets in the dense forest canopies of Malaysia have discovered the first example of a wild male mammal that lactates. The species is a Dayak fruit bat, a large and poorly understood creature with an 18-inch wingspan, a dog-like face and, it turns out, a touch of androgyny. When the researchers captured a group of the bats in a wide-ranging effort to survey animals that inhabit the Malaysian canopy, they were dumbfounded to see that the eight adult male Dayaks in the net all had visibly swollen breasts that produced milk upon being gently squeezed.
"'They looked like perfectly good males with large testes, but from the other end I could see they also had well-developed breasts,' said Dr. Charles M. Francis, a research associate with the Wildlife Conservation Society..."
Francis is an expert in birds and in the bats of this area, but also has a keen interest in mammals. He has included interesting essays on finding and studying mammals and on conservation.
This book is a great resource for a general reader like myself who enjoys learning about animals, in my arm chair, and when I'm really lucky, on the ground. This book is a great resource for either purpose.
Robert C. Ross 2008
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