New Title

1) Prothero, Donald R.. The Story of Life in 25 Fossils: Tales of Intrepid Fossil Hunters and the Wonders of Evolution. 2015. Columbia University Press. Hardbound: 389 pages. Price: $35.00 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: Every fossil tells a story. Best-selling paleontology author Donald R. Prothero describes twenty-five famous, beautifully preserved fossils in a gripping scientific history of life on Earth. Recounting the adventures behind the discovery of these objects and fully interpreting their significance within the larger fossil record, Prothero creates a riveting history of life on our planet.
     The twenty-five fossils portrayed in this book catch animals in their evolutionary splendor as they transition from one kind of organism to another. We witness extinct plants and animals of microscopic and immense size and thrilling diversity. We learn about fantastic land and sea creatures that have no match in nature today. Along the way, we encounter such fascinating fossils as the earliest trilobite, Olenellus; the giant shark Carcharocles; the "fishibian" Tiktaalik; the "Frogamander" and the "Turtle on the Half-Shell"; enormous marine reptiles and the biggest dinosaurs known; the first bird, Archaeopteryx; the walking whale Ambulocetus; the gigantic hornless rhinoceros Paraceratherium, the largest land mammal that ever lived; and the Australopithecus nicknamed "Lucy," the oldest human skeleton. We meet the scientists and adventurers who pioneered paleontology and learn about the larger intellectual and social contexts in which their discoveries were made. Finally, we find out where to see these splendid fossils in the world's great museums.
     Ideal for all who love prehistoric landscapes and delight in the history of science, this book makes a treasured addition to any bookshelf, stoking curiosity in the evolution of life on Earth.
RECOMMENDATION: A readable introduction to paleontology focused on animals.

New Title

1) Berta, Annalisa (editor). Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises: A Natural History and Species Guide. 2015. The University of Chicago Press. Hardbound: 288 pages. Price: $45.00 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: The eighty-nine cetacean species that swim our seas and rivers are as diverse as they are intelligent and elusive, from the hundred-foot-long, two-hundred-ton blue whale to the lesser-known tucuxi, ginkgo-toothed beaked whale, and diminutive, critically endangered vaquita. The huge distances these highly migratory creatures cover and the depths they dive mean we catch only the merest glimpses of their lives as they break the surface of the water. But thanks to the marriage of science and technology, we are now beginning to understand their anatomy, complex social structures, extraordinary communication abilities, and behavioral patterns. In this beautifully illustrated guide, renowned marine mammalogist Annalisa Berta draws on the contributions of a pod of fellow whale biologists to present the most comprehensive, authoritative overview ever published of these remarkable aquatic mammals.
     Opening with an accessible rundown of cetacean biology—including the most recent science on feeding, mating, and communication—Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises then presents species-specific natural history on a range of topics, from anatomy and diet to distribution and conservation status. Each entry also includes original drawings of the species and its key identifiers, such as fin shape and color, tooth shape, and characteristic markings as they would appear both above and below water—a feature unique to this book.
     Figures of myth and—as the debate over hunting rages on—figures of conflict since long before the days of Moby-Dick, whales, dolphins, and porpoises are also ecologically important and, in many cases, threatened. Written for general enthusiasts, emergent cetacean fans, and biologists alike, this stunning, urgently needed book will serve as the definitive guide for years to come.
RECOMMENDATION: A well illustrated reference book (not a field guide) to the World's cetaceans.

New Titles

1) Alexander, David E.. On the Wing: Insects, Pterosaurs, Birds, Bats and the Evolution of Animal Flight. 2015. Oxford University Press. Hardbound: 210 pages. Price: $29.95 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: Ask anybody what superpower they wished to possess and odds are the answer just might be "the ability to fly." What is it about soaring through the air held up by the power of one's own body that has captivated humans for so long? David Alexander examines the evolution of flight in the only four animals to have evolved this ability: insects, pterosaurs, birds, and bats. With an accessible writing style grounded in rigorous research, Alexander breaks new ground in a field that has previously been confined to specialists. While birds have received the majority of attention from flight researchers, Alexander pays equal attention to all four groups of flyers-something that no other book on the subject has done before now. In a streamlined and captivating way, David Alexander demonstrates the links between the tiny 2-mm thrip and the enormous albatross with the 12 feet wingspan used to cross oceans.
     The book delves into the fossil record of flyers enough to satisfy the budding paleontologist, while also pleasing ornithologists and entomologists alike with its treatment of animal behavior, flapping mechanisms, and wing-origin theory. Alexander uses relatable examples to draw in readers even without a natural interest in birds, bees, and bats. He takes something that is so off-limits and unfamiliar to humans-the act of flying-and puts it in the context of experiences that many readers can relate to. Alexander guides readers through the anomalies of the flying world: hovering hummingbirds, unexpected gliders (squirrels, for instance), and the flyers that went extinct (pterosaurs). Alexander also delves into wing-origin theory and explores whether birds entered the skies from the trees down (as gliders) or from the ground up (as runners) and uses the latest fossil evidence to present readers with an answer.
RECOMMENDATION: For those with a semi-technical interest in the topic.

2) Duellman, William E.. Marsupial Frogs: Gastrotheca and Allied Genera. 2015. Johns Hopkins University Press. Hardbound: 407 pages. Price: $120.00 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: This scientific masterpiece reveals many aspects of the lives of marsupial frogs and closely allied genera. Native to Central and South America, these amphibians differ from other frogs in that they protect their eggs after oviposition by either adhering them to the female’s back or placing them in a specialized dorsal pouch (thus the common name, marsupial frog). During mating, the male typically collects the eggs from the female with his feet—often one at a time and always out of water—fertilizes them, and then tucks them into the female’s pouch or attaches them to her back. In some species these eggs hatch as tadpoles, but most emerge as miniatures of the adults. Even among the tadpoles there is remarkable divergence, with some behaving in the typical manner (feeding and metamorphosing), whereas others forego all feeding until they metamorphose.
      In Marsupial Frogs, William E. Duellman’s synthesis of all that is known about the unique family Hemiphractidae is largely based on decades of his own careful laboratory and field study. He reveals the diversity of exotic color patterns and the frogs' geographic distributions by providing more than 200 photographs, illustrations, and maps. This exceptional tome should find its way into the libraries of serious herpetologists, tropical biologists, and developmental biologists.
     Included in this book are:
• A molecular phylogeny of the family Hemiphractidae• A thorough osteological analysis• A review of external morphological features• An overview of the evolution of reproductive modes• A biogeographic synthesis• Keys to genera and species• Diagnosis and thorough description of each species of marsupial frog• Colored physiographic maps depicting species distributions.
RECOMMENDATION: For those with a technical interest in these species.

New Title

1) van Perlo, Ber. Birds of South America: Passerines. 2015. Princeton University Press. Paperback: 464 pages. Price: $29.95 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: This comprehensive field guide to the birds of South America covers all 1,952 passerine species to be found south of Panama, including offshore islands such as Trinidad, the Galapagos, and the Falklands, and the islands of the Scotia Arc leading to the Antarctic mainland. It features 197 stunning color plates and detailed species accounts that describe key identification features, habitat, songs, and calls. All plumages for each species are illustrated, including males, females, and juveniles. This easy-to-use guide is the essential travel companion for experienced birdwatchers and novice birders alike. [Range maps are also included.]
RECOMMENDATION: This book is a supplement to: Birds of South America: Non-passerines: Rheas to Woodpeckers.

New Title

1) Tucker, David. Geology Underfoot in Western Washington. 2015. Mountain Press Publishing Company. Paperback: 374 pages. Price: $24.00 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: Ancient volcanoes preserved as deeply eroded scraps. Seafloors forced high into the sky. Fossils of a long-extinct, 385-pound flightless bird that roamed subtropical floodplains. From the crest of the Cascades to the Pacific, and from the Columbia River north to the Canadian border, the ghosts of deep time are widely exposed in western Washington. But geology never really dies. It is very much active and alive in the region: volcanoes periodically erupt, showering their surroundings with ash; earthquakes shake Earth’s surface and the constructions of humans, sending tsunamis ashore to wreak havoc; and melting alpine glaciers send forth great floods of water.
     Geology Underfoot in Western Washington, the most recent addition to the Geology Underfoot series, author and geoscientist Dave Tucker narrates western Washington’s geologic tales, covering sites from it’s low-lying shorelines to its rugged mountaintops. The book’s 22 chapters, or vignettes, lead you to easily accessible stops along Washington’s highways—and some trails, too. A healthy dose of full-color illustrations and photos compliments the author’s illuminating prose, further demystifying Washington’s geologic wonders. With Geology Underfoot in Western Washington in hand, you’ll soon feel like an Evergreen State geology expert.
RECOMMENDATION: A must have for anyone with an interest in the geology of the region.

New Title

1) Tarboton, Warwick, and  Michèle Tarboton. A Guide to the Dragonflies & Damselflies of South Africa. 2015. Struik Nature. Paperback: 224 pages. Price: $25.00 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: This field guide to all the dragonflies and damselflies of South Africa – a total of 164 species – addresses a growing area of interest and fills the gap left by two previous books on the topic, now both out of print. A detailed introduction covers behavior, life cycles, biology and breeding; and the species entries focus on identification and distribution, with all species photographed from scans of actual insects, beautifully presented in full color. Comprehensive and fully up to date, this extraordinary study of dragonflies and damselflies of the region will be snapped up by anyone with an interest in the insect life of the region.
RECOMMENDATION: A MUST have for those with an interest in the Odonata of the region!

Warwick Tarboton

Warwick Tarboton

Warwick Tarboton

New Titles

1) Brown, Nancy Marie. Ivory Vikings: The Mystery of the Most Famous Chessmen in the World and the Woman Who Made Them. 2015. St. Martin's Press. Hardbound: 280 pages. Price: $26.99 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: In the early 1800's, on a Hebridean beach in Scotland, the sea exposed an ancient treasure cache: 93 chessmen carved from walrus ivory. Norse netsuke, each face individual, each full of quirks, the Lewis Chessmen are probably the most famous chess pieces in the world. Harry played Wizard's Chess with them in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Housed at the British Museum, they are among its most visited and beloved objects.

    Questions abounded: Who carved them? Where? Nancy Marie Brown's Ivory Vikings explores these mysteries by connecting medieval Icelandic sagas with modern archaeology, art history, forensics, and the history of board games. In the process, Ivory Vikings presents a vivid history of the 400 years when the Vikings ruled the North Atlantic, and the sea-road connected countries and islands we think of as far apart and culturally distinct: Norway and Scotland, Ireland and Iceland, and Greenland and North America. The story of the Lewis chessmen explains the economic lure behind the Viking voyages to the west in the 800s and 900s. And finally, it brings from the shadows an extraordinarily talented woman artist of the twelfth century: Margret the Adroit of Iceland.

RECOMMENDATION: For those with an interest in Viking history.

2) Haltman, Kenneth (introduction). The Butterflies of North America: Titian Peale's Lost Manuscript. 2015. Abrams. Hardbound: 256 pages. Price: $40.00 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: The American artist and naturalist Titian Ramsay Peale II (1799–1885) had a passion for butterflies, and throughout his long life he wrote and illustrated an ambitious and comprehensive manuscript. The book, along with a companion volume on caterpillars, was never published, and it resides today in the Rare Book Collection of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Now Peale’s color plates, lovingly prepared for the printer by the artist more than 100 years ago, will be published for the first time in this beautiful volume. At last, Peale’s life work, equivalent in scope and beauty to Audubon’s Birds of North America, will be available to a wide audience. The book includes a foreword by Ellen V. Futter and text by Kenneth Haltman and David A. Grimaldi that describes the art and science Peale brought to his extraordinary work.
RECOMMENDATION: A MUST have for those with an interest in historical lepidopterology of North America!

3) O'Connor, M.R.. Resurrection Science: Conservation, De-Extinction and the Precarious Future of Wild Things. 2015. St. Martin's Press. Hardbound: 266 pages. Price: $25.99 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: In a world dominated by people and rapid climate change, species large and small are increasingly vulnerable to extinction. In Resurrection Science, journalist M. R. O'Connor explores the extreme measures scientists are taking to try and save them, from captive breeding and genetic management to de-extinction. Paradoxically, the more we intervene to save species, the less wild they often become. In stories of sixteenth-century galleon excavations, panther-tracking in Florida swamps, ancient African rainforests, Neanderthal tool-making, and cryogenic DNA banks, O'Connor investigates the philosophical questions of an age in which we "play god" with earth's biodiversity.

     Each chapter in this beautifully written book focuses on a unique species--from the charismatic northern white rhinoceros to the infamous passenger pigeon--and the people entwined in the animals' fates. Incorporating natural history and evolutionary biology with conversations with eminent ethicists, O'Connor's narrative goes to the heart of the human enterprise: What should we preserve of wilderness as we hurtle toward a future in which technology is present in nearly every aspect of our lives? How can we co-exist with species when our existence and their survival appear to be pitted against one another?

RECOMMENDATION: For those with an interest in conservation biology.

New Title

1) Wulf, Andrea. The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World. 2015. Knopf. Hardbound: 496 pages. Price: $30.00 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: The acclaimed author of Founding Gardeners reveals the forgotten life of Alexander von Humboldt, the visionary German naturalist whose ideas changed the way we see the natural world—and in the process created modern environmentalism.
      Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) was an intrepid explorer and the most famous scientist of his age. In North America, his name still graces four counties, thirteen towns, a river, parks, bays, lakes, and mountains. His restless life was packed with adventure and discovery, whether he was climbing the highest volcanoes in the world or racing through anthrax-infected Siberia or translating his research into bestselling publications that changed science and thinking. Among Humboldt’s most revolutionary ideas was a radical vision of nature, that it is a complex and interconnected global force that does not exist for the use of humankind alone.
     Now Andrea Wulf brings the man and his achievements back into focus: his daring expeditions and investigation of wild environments around the world and his discoveries of similarities between climate and vegetation zones on different continents. She also discusses his prediction of human-induced climate change, his remarkable ability to fashion poetic narrative out of scientific observation, and his relationships with iconic figures such as Simón Bolívar and Thomas Jefferson. Wulf examines how Humboldt’s writings inspired other naturalists and poets such as Darwin, Wordsworth, and Goethe, and she makes the compelling case that it was Humboldt’s influence that led John Muir to his ideas of natural preservation and that shaped Thoreau’s Walden.
     With this brilliantly researched and compellingly written book, Andrea Wulf shows the myriad fundamental ways in which Humboldt created our understanding of the natural world, and she champions a renewed interest in this vital and lost player in environmental history and science.
RECOMMENDATION: For those with an interest in the history of natural history study.

New Title

1) Ceballos, Gerardo, Anne H. Ehrlich, and Paul R. Ehrlich. The Annihilation of Nature: Human Extinction of Birds and Mammals. 2015. Johns Hopkins University Press. Hardbound: 191 pages. Price: $29.95 U.S.

PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: This book shows us the face of Earth’s sixth great mass extinction, revealing that this century is a time of darkness for the world’s birds and mammals. In The Annihilation of Nature, three of today’s most distinguished conservationists tell the stories of the birds and mammals we have lost and those that are now on the road to extinction. These tragic tales, coupled with eighty-three color photographs from the world’s leading nature photographers, display the beauty and biodiversity that humans are squandering.     
     Gerardo Ceballos, Anne H. Ehrlich, and Paul R. Ehrlich serve as witnesses in this trial of human neglect, where the charge is the massive and escalating assault on living things. Nature is being annihilated, not only because of the human population explosion, but also as a result of massive commercial endeavors and public apathy. Despite the well-intentioned work of conservation organizations and governments, the authors warn us that not enough is being done and time is short for the most vulnerable of the world’s wild birds and mammals. Thousands of populations have already disappeared, other populations are dwindling daily, and soon our descendants may live in a world containing but a minuscule fraction of the birds and mammals we know today.
     The Annihilation of Nature is a clarion call for engagement and action. These outspoken scientists urge everyone who cares about nature to become personally connected to the victims of our inadequate conservation efforts and demand that restoration replace destruction. Only then will we have any hope of preventing the worst-case scenario of the sixth mass extinction.
RECOMMENDATION: If you liked the Ehrlich's other works you should like this one.

New Titles

1) Avery, Mark. Inglorious: Conflict in the Uplands. 2015. Bloomsbury. Hardbound: 304 pages. Price: $26.00 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: Driven grouse shooting, where flocks of Red Grouse are chased by lines of beaters so that they fly over lines of "guns" that shoot the fast-flying birds, is a peculiarly British field sport. It is also peculiarly British in that it is deeply rooted in the British class system. Grouse shooting is big business, backed by powerful, wealthy lobbying groups, with tendrils running throughout British society.

     Inglorious makes the case for banning driven grouse shooting. Mark Avery explains why he has, after many years of soul-searching, come down in favor of an outright ban. There is too much illegal killing of wildlife, such as Buzzards, Golden Eagles, and, most egregiously of all, Hen Harriers; and, as a land use, it wrecks the ecology of the hills. However, grouse shooting is economically important, and it is a great British tradition. All of these, and other points of view, are given fair and detailed treatment and analysis, with testimony from a range of people on opposite sides of the debate.
     The book also sets out Avery's campaign with Chris Packham to gain support for the proposal to ban grouse shooting, culminating in "Hen Harrier Day," timed to coincide with the "Glorious" 12th. Ever controversial, Mark Avery is guaranteed to stir up a debate about field sports, the countryside, and big business in a book that all conservationists will want to read.  

RECOMMENDATION: If you enjoyed the author's other works, you should enjoy this book.

2) Lindo, David. Tales from Concrete Jungles: Urban birding around the world. 2015. Bloomsbury. Hardbound: 240 pages. Price: $27.00 U.S.
PUBLISHER'S SUMMARY: When you think about going bird-watching, you imagine visiting magnificent open countryside, rolling hills, lush woodland, or waterlogged marshes. You don't think of towns and cities. In fact, the urban environment is surprisingly rich in birds: parks, gardens, scrubland, lakes, and reservoirs all harbor many species of birds. Some town gardens even have bigger lists of birds than country gardens do.
      Since 2006, a long-running series of articles has appeared in Birdwatching magazine, showcasing David Lindo visiting a wide variety of cities in Britain and Europe and the birds he has encountered on these short city breaks. These articles are collected here for the first time--most of them expanded with new material but also, featuring a few never before published. They cover visits to many cities throughout the world and the striking variations among them.
      This book is not a compendium of birding sites within many of the world's cities. It is a series of adventures featuring birds and inspiring stories. Above all, it is hoped that this book will inspire you to look at cities with different eyes, to appreciate the diversity of wildlife wherever you are, and realize the importance of the conservation message.  
RECOMMENDATION: If you enjoyed the author's The Urban Birder, you'll like this book.