Cynthia Moss has studied the elephants in Kenya's Amboseli National Park for over twenty-seven years. Her long-term research has revealed much of what we now know about these complex and intelligent animals. Here she chronicles the lives of the members of the T families led by matriarchs Teresia, Slit Ear, Torn Ear, Tania, and Tuskless. With a new afterword catching up on the families and covering current conservation issues, Moss's story will continue to fascinate animal lovers.
"One is soon swept away by this 'Babar' for adults. By the end, one even begins to feel an aversion for people. One wants to curse human civilization and cry out, 'Now God stand up for the elephants!'"--Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, "New York Times"
"Moss speaks to the general reader, with charm as well as scientific authority. . . . [An] elegantly written and ingeniously structured account." --Raymond Sokolov, "Wall Street Journal"
"Moss tells the story in a style so conversational . . . that I felt like a privileged visitor riding beside her in her rickety Land-Rover as she showed me around the park." --Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, "New York Times Book Review"
"A prose-poem celebrating a species from which we could learn some moral as well as zoological lessons." --"Chicago Tribune"

Scientific studies of monkeys, apes, and other nonhuman primates began just over 50 years ago. Since then tens of thousands of hours of observation have been made on these animals in the wild and in captivity. The chief rationale for scientific primatology has always been the belief that important insights into human behaviour and society could be gained through studies of our evolutionary kin.

This book reviews what we have learned. Distinguished researchers outline primatological insights in six areas: sex, parenting, behavioural development, aggression/dominance, culture and kinship. The chapters show how primates have been used as simplified models of human behaviour and how they have contributed to scenarios of human evolution. Lay readers, students, and specialists alike will find this a readable and useful compendium of the findings of scientific primatology. Covering topics from orgasm to ontogeny, parental investment to penis size, and kinship to culture, this book summarizes what studying monkeys and apes has taught us about ourselves.

First published in 1986, Smithers' mammals is an authoritative and popular guide to the mammals of Southern Africa. This revised and updated edition incorporates the latest information brought to light by molecular genetics, while remaining accessible to the layperson and handy in the field. Each entry includes an in-depth species description; notes on habitat, behaviour, diet and conservation status; accurate illustrations and spoor drawings; and a distribution map.

The title also details the whales, dolphins and seals seen along our coast.

This highly regarded field guide will appeal to general readers and wildlife enthusiasts, as well as to specialists in the field of mammals.

The Colobines are a group of Afroeurasian monkeys that exhibit extraordinary behavioural and ecological diversity. With long tails and diverse colourations, they are medium-sized primates, mostly arboreal, that are found in many different habitats, from rain forests and mountain forests to mangroves and savannah. Over the last two decades, our understanding of this group of primates has increased dramatically. This volume presents a comprehensive overview of the current research on colobine populations, including the range of biological, ecological, behavioural and societal traits they exhibit. It highlights areas where our knowledge is still lacking, and outlines the current conservation status of colobine populations, exploring the threats to their survival. Bringing together international experts, this volume will aid future conservation efforts and encourage further empirical studies. It will be of interest to researchers and graduate students in primatology, biological anthropology and conservation science. Additional online resources can be found at www.cambridge.org/colobines.

This new edition - now with Nancy Jackson as a co-author - continues the themes of the first edition: the need to restore the biodiversity, ecosystem health, and ecosystem services provided by coastal landforms and habitats, especially in the light of climate change. The second edition reports on progress made on practices identified in the first edition, presents additional case studies, and addresses new and emerging issues. It analyzes the tradeoffs involved in restoring beaches and dunes - especially on developed coasts - the most effective approaches to use, and how stakeholders can play an active role. The concept of restoration is broad, and includes physical, ecological, economic, social, and ethical principles and ideals. The book will be valuable for coastal scientists, engineers, planners, and managers, as well as shorefront residents. It will also serve as a useful supplementary reference textbook in courses dealing with issues of coastal management and ecology.

Why do orangutan arms closely resemble human arms? What is the advantage to primates of having long limbs? Why do primates have forward-facing eyes? Answers to questions such as these are usually revealed by comparative studies of primate anatomy.

In this heavily illustrated, up-to-date text, primate anatomist Daniel L. Gebo provides straightforward explanations of primate anatomy that move logically through the body plan and across species. Including only what is essential in relation to soft tissues, the book relies primarily on bony structures to explain the functions and diversity of anatomy among living primates. Ideal for college and graduate courses, Gebo's book will also appeal to researchers in the fields of mammalogy, primatology, anthropology, and paleontology.

Included in this book are discussions of:

- Phylogeny- Adaptation- Body size- The wet- and dry-nosed primates- Bone biology- Musculoskeletal mechanics- Strepsirhine and haplorhine heads- Primate teeth and diets- Necks, backs, and tails- The pelvis and reproduction- Locomotion- Forelimbs and hindlimbs- Hands and feet- Grasping toes

This book concentrates on the marine mammalian group of Odontocetes, the toothed whales, dolphins, and porpoises. In 23 chapters, a total of 40 authors describe general patterns of ethological concepts of odontocetes in their natural environments, with a strong bent towards behavioral ecology. Examples are given of particularly well-studied species and species groups for which enough data exist, especially from the past 15 years. The aim is to give a modern flavor of present knowledge of ethology and behavior of generally large-brained behaviorally flexible mammals that have evolved quite separately from social mammals on land. As well, the plight of populations and species due to humans is described in multiple chapters, with the goal that an understanding of behavior can help to solve or alleviate at least some human-made problems.

Being a mom is a tough job—but imagine doing it in the jungle or out on the safari, faced by the ravages of the elements, a scarcity of resources, and the threat of predators prowling at all times of the day and night. In Wild Moms, Dr. Carin Bondar takes readers on an enthralling tour of the animal kingdom as she explores the phenomenon of motherhood in the wild. A journey through motherhood for the animal kingdom—from the initial phases of gestation and pregnancy through breastfeeding and toddler-rearing and trying to parent a teenager through empty nest syndrome (which, in many of these cases, is quite literal!) to being a grandmother. In Wild Moms, Dr. Bondar answers a whole host of questions about the animal kingdom: How do moms in the animal kingdom cope with crying babies and potty training? How does breastfeeding work in the wild—particularly when a mother is nursing not one baby at a time, but a whole litter? Accessible and entertaining, Wild Moms is a celebration of moms everywhere—and a book guaranteed to make readers think about motherhood in an entirely new way.

Primate and Human Evolution provides a synthesis of the evolution and adaptive significance of human anatomical, physiological and behavioral traits. Using paleontology and modern human variation and biology, it compares hominid traits to those of other catarrhine primates both living and extinct, presenting a new hominization model that does not depend solely on global climate change, but on predictable trends observed in catarrhines. Dealing with the origins of hominid tool use and tool manufacture, it compares tool behavior in other animals and incorporates information from the earliest archaeological record. Examining the use of non-human primates and other mammals in modeling the origins of early human social behavior, Susan Cachel argues that human intelligence does not arise from complex social interactions, but from attentiveness to the natural world. This book will be a rich source of inspiration for all those interested in the evolution of all primates, including ourselves.

With only 5,000 surviving, the African wild dog (Lycaon pictus) is one of the world's most endangered large carnivores--and one of the most remarkable. This comprehensive portrait of wild dogs incorporates previously scattered information with important new findings from a six-year study in Tanzania's Selous Game Reserve, Africa's largest protected area.

The book emphasizes ecology, concentrating on why wild dogs fare poorly in protected areas that maintain healthy populations of lions, hyenas, or other top carnivores. In addition to conservation issues, it covers fascinating aspects of wild dog behavior and social evolution. The Creels use demographic, behavioral, endocrine, and genetic approaches to examine how and why nonbreeding pack mates help breeding pairs raise their litters. They also present the largest data set ever collected on mammalian predator-prey interactions and the evolution of cooperative hunting, allowing them to account for wild dogs' prowess as hunters.

By using a large sample size and sophisticated analytical tools, the authors step well beyond previous research. Their results include some surprises that will cause even specialists to rethink certain propositions, such as the idea that wild dogs are unusually vulnerable to infectious disease. Several findings apply broadly to the management of other protected areas.

Of clear appeal to ecologists studying predation and cooperation in any population, this book collects and expands a cache of information useful to anyone studying conservation as well as to amateurs intrigued by the once-maligned but extraordinary wild dog.

When it was originally released in 1980, Jeanne Altmann's book transformed the study of maternal primate relationships by focusing on motherhood and infancy within a complex ecological and sociological context. Available again with a new foreword by the author, Baboon Mothers and Infants is a classic book that has been, in its own right, a mother to a generation of influential research and will no doubt provide further inspiration.

"Neotropical Rainforest Mammals," the first color-illustrated field guide to these marvelously diverse and elusive creatures, has enjoyed tremendous success since its initial publication in 1990. Ecotourists and field researchers alike have applauded this guide's compact size, light weight, and durability. More important, they have appreciated its clear and concise accounts of the mammals of this broad region. Each species account includes information on identifying characteristics, similar species, vocalizations, behavior and natural history, geographic range, conservation status, local names, and references to the scientific literature.
In this completely revised and updated second edition:
A total of 226 species are treated in full (206 were included in the first edition).
All species accounts retained from the first edition have been updated to include the most recent research.
All 195 maps showing the distribution and geographic range of each species have been revised to reflect the most current information.
Twenty-nine beautiful color plates illustrate more than 220 species (including significant color variants between males and females or adults and young). Seven black-and-white plates contain more than 60 images of individual species, mainly bats.
A compact disc of mammal vocalizations--crucial to identifying nocturnal and otherwise cryptic animals that sometimes may be heard rather than seen--will be available for purchase separately.
Praise for the first edition:
"If you can't go to the Central and South American rain forests to see firsthand their threatened ecosystems, here is the next best thing."--"Washington Post Book World"
"A largeamount of information is presented concisely and in a way that is easy to use."--"Choice"
"The presentation and wealth of information contained in this field guide is outstanding and will satisfy the needs of both the 'tourist' and 'researcher' traveling to the Neotropics."--"Canadian Field-Naturalist"

Dama gazelles, the largest of the gazelles, were once a common sight in Northern Africa, with a habitat ranging from the Atlantic Ocean east almost to the Nile River. Today, these animals are critically endangered as their populations have dropped precipitously due to the effects of expanding agrarian practices, overhunting, violent human conflict, and climate change on their native habitats. Though they are perilously close to extinction in the wild, Texas ranches maintain over a thousand dama gazelles-more than the number currently in zoos and in the wild combined. The habitat on some of these ranches resembles their natural range along the Sahara Desert of Northern Africa, making them suitable living spaces for damas. In The Dama Gazelles, Elizabeth Cary Mungall brings together experts from around the world and offers a comprehensive reference book on these animals, including information on natural history and taxonomy; physical and behavioral traits; dama gazelles held in zoos and collections, parks and preserves, and on Texas ranches; and efforts to reintroduce populations into the wild. There is also a rare, firsthand account from Frans M. van den Brink, an animal dealer from the Netherlands, who in the 1960s successfully captured 35 dama gazelles in Northern Africa and transported them to zoos in the United States and Europe, losing only two animals in the harrowing process. Those 33 dama gazelles were the "founders" of all the dama gazelles in captivity today. Detailed appendixes and a glossary round out the volume with additional information to help researchers, zookeepers, and landowners better understand and conserve dama gazelles.

"Meshing deft scientific text with Tuttle's sumptuous images, it's a superb introduction to the baroque morphologies and flying prowess of these beguiling beasts."- Nature Bats: An Illustrated Guide to All Species looks in detail at the more than 1,300 species known today. Nocturnal, fast-flying and secretive, they are endlessly fascinating, yet extremely difficult to observe and catalogue. The diversity of bats is both rich and underestimated and the threats they face from humans are very real. This guide illuminates the world of bats and reveals their true nature as intelligent, social and deeply misunderstood creatures. This extravagantly illustrated handbook features the work of famed nature photographer Merlin D. Tuttle and in-depth profiles of 288 bats, from the Large Flying Fox, which has a wingspan of more than five feet, to the Bumblebee Bat, contender for the world's smallest mammal. Bats includes close-up images of these animals' delicate and intricate forms and faces, each shaped by evolution to meet the demands of an extraordinarily specialized life, and a thorough introduction which explores their natural history and unique adaptations to life on the wing. If you like this you might also be interested in Owls by Marianne Taylor . . .

This book addresses how skeletons can inform us about behavior by describing skeletal lesions in the Gombe chimpanzees, relating them to known life histories whenever possible, and analyzing demographic patterns in the sample. This is of particular interest to both primatologists and skeletal analysts who have benefited from published data on a smaller, earlier skeletal sample from Gombe. The Gombe skeletal collection is the largest collection of wild chimpanzees with known life histories in existence, and this work significantly expands the skeletal sample from this long-term research site (49 chimpanzees). The book explores topics of general interest to skeletal analysts such as demographic patterns, which injuries leave signs on the skeleton, and rates of healing, and discusses both qualitative and quantitative analysis of the patterning of lesions. The book presents the data in a narrative style similar to that employed in Dr. Goodall's seminal work The Chimpanzees of Gombe. Readers already familiar with the Gombe chimpanzees are likely to appreciate summaries of life events correlated to observable skeletal features. The book is especially relevant at this time to remind primate conservationists of the importance of the isolated chimpanzee population at Gombe National Park as well as the availability of the skeletons for study, both within the park itself as well as at the University of Minnesota.

Along with reproduction, balancing energy expenditure with the limits of resource acquisition is essential for both a species and a population to survive. But energy is a limited resource, as we know well, so birds and mammals - the most energy-intensive fauna on the planet - must reduce energy expenditures to maintain this balance, some taking small steps, and others extreme measures. Here Brian K. McNab draws on his over sixty years in the field to provide a comprehensive account of the energetics of birds and mammals, one fully integrated with their natural history. McNab begins with an overview of thermal rates - much of our own energy is spent maintaining our 98.6[degrees]F temperature - and explains how the basal rate of metabolism drives energy use, especially in extreme environments. He then explores those variables that interact with the basal rate of metabolism, like body size and scale and environment, highlighting their influence on behavior, distribution, and even reproductive output. Successive chapters take up energy and population dynamics and evolution. A critical central theme that runs through the book is how the energetic needs of birds and mammals come up against rapid environmental change and how this is hastening the pace of extinction.

Infrastructure development in Africa and Asia is expanding at breakneck speed, largely in biodiversity-rich developing nations. The trend reflects governments' efforts to promote economic growth in response to increasing populations, rising consumption rates and persistent inequalities. Large-scale infrastructure development is regularly touted as a way to meet the growing demand for energy, transport and food - and as a key to poverty alleviation. In practice, however, road networks, hydropower dams and 'development corridors' tend to have adverse effects on local populations, natural habitats and biodiversity. Such projects typically weaken the capacity of ecosystems to maintain ecological functions on which wildlife and human communities depend, particularly in the face of climate change. This title is also available as Open Access via Cambridge Core.

The Arashiyama group of Japanese macaques holds a distinguished place in primatology as one of the longest continuously studied non-human primate populations in the world. The resulting long-term data provide a unique resource for researchers, allowing them to move beyond cross-sectional studies to tackle larger issues involving individual, matrilineal and group histories. This book presents an overview of the scope and magnitude of research topics and management efforts that have been conducted on this population for several decades, covering not only the original troop living around Kyoto, Japan, but also the two subgroups that were translocated to Texas, USA and Montreal, Canada. The chapters encompass topics including life history, sexual, social and cultural behaviour and ecology, giving an insight into the range of current primatological research. The contributors underscore the historic value of the Arashiyama macaques and showcase new and significant research findings that highlight their continuing importance to primatology.

The dwarf and mouse lemurs of Madagascar are two very species-rich lemur genera, yet there is a relative paucity of information on this primate family in published literature. In this first ever treatment of the Cheirogaleidae, international experts are brought together to review and integrate our current knowledge of the behaviour, physiology, ecology, genetics and biogeography of these species. A wide range of direct and indirect research methods that are currently used to study these cryptic nocturnal solitary foragers are described. By uniting often disparate research on captive and free-ranging taxa and synthesising recent methodological advances, this book provides new insights that will encourage further studies of this fascinating primate family. This synthesis will provide an incentive for more integrative studies of the Cheirogaleidae in captivity and in the wild, enabling the impacts of deforestation and other factors to be identified and directions for future conservation efforts to be established.

Feral and stray domestic cats occupy many different habitats. They can resist dehydration for months by relying exclusively on the tissue water of their prey allowing them to colonize remote deserts and other inhospitableplaces. They thrive and reproduce in humid equatorial rainforests and windswept subantarctic islands. In many areas of the world feral cats have driven some species of birds and mammals to extinction and others to the edge, becoming a huge conservation concern. With the control of feral and stray cats now a top conservation priority, biologists are intensifying efforts to understand cat behaviour, reproductive biology, use of space, intraspecies interaction, dietary requirements, prey preferences, and vulnerability to different managementstrategies.This book provides the most comprehensive review yet published on the behavior, ecology and management of free-ranging domestic cats, whether they be owned, stray, or feral. It reviews management methods and their progress, and questions several widely accepted views of free-ranging cats, notably that they live within dominance hierarchies and are highly social.

Insightful and objective, this book includes: a functional approach, emphasizing sensory biology, reproductive physiology, nutrition, and spacepartitioning;clear treatment of how free-ranging cats should be managed;extensive critical interpretation of the world's existing literature;results of studies of cats in laboratories under controlled conditions, with data that can also beapplied to pet cats.

"Free-ranging Cats: Behavior, Ecology, Management" is valuable to ecologists, conservation scientists, animal behaviorists, wildlife nutritionists, wildlife biologists, research and wildlife veterinarians, clinical veterinarians, mammalogists, and park and game reserve planners and administrators.

Despite an astonishing 100 million-fold range in adult body mass from bumblebee bat to blue whale, all mammals are formed of the same kinds of molecules, cells, tissues and organs and to the same overall body plan. A scaling approach investigates the principles of mammal design by examining the ways in which mammals of diverse size and taxonomy are quantitatively comparable. This book presents an extensive reanalysis of scaling data collected over a quarter of a century, including many rarely or never-cited sources. The result is an unparalleled contribution to understanding scaling in mammals, addressing a uniquely extensive range of mammal attributes and using substantially larger and more rigorously screened samples than in any prior works. An invaluable resource for all those interested in the 'design' of mammals, this is an ideal resource for postgraduates and researchers in a range of fields from comparative physiology to ecology.

In "The Black-Tailed Prairie Dog," John L. Hoogland draws on sixteen years of research at Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota, in the United States to provide this account of prairie dog social behavior. Through comparisons with more than 300 other animal species, he offers new insights into basic theory in behavioral ecology and sociobiology.
Hoogland documents interactions within and among families of prairie dogs to examine the advantages and disadvantages of coloniality. By addressing such topics as male and female reproductive success, inbreeding, kin recognition, and infanticide, Hoogland offers a broad view of conflict and cooperation. Among his surprising findings is that prairie dog females sometimes suckle, and at other times kill, the offspring of close kin.
Enhanced by more than 100 photographs, this book illuminates the social organization of a burrowing mammal and raises fundamental questions about current theory. As the most detailed long-term study of any social rodent, "The Black-Tailed Prairie Dog" will interest not only mammalogists and other vertebrate biologists, but also students of behavioral and evolutionary ecology.

For over thirty years, rodents have been used in the study of many human and animal diseases. The rat in particular continues to serve as an experimental model for drug safety and efficacy tests for the treatment of neurological disorders, heart disease, diabetes, breast, liver and other cancers. With the more recent advent of transgenic technology, an impressive amount of new knowledge about transmissible spongiform encephalopathies has been accumulated. It is likely that the principles learned from the study of these prion diseases will be applicable to elucidating the causes of more common neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. As a result of this and, more importantly, because of increasingly complicated legislation governing the use of animals in regulated procedures, there is a need for experimenters (both experienced and those new to the laboratory) to improve their skills continuously and to become au fait with all aspects of preparatory techniques. The Rat Nervous System provides an accessible guide to the dissection and perfusion of rats, placing particular emphasis on the preparation of nervous tissue for further study in the laboratory including biochemical analysis and microscopic study. Logically structured with highly illustrated chapters covering gross anatomy, anatomy of the nervous system, anaesthesia, biological fixation and tissue extraction, the book provides a comprehensive introduction to those techniques required to provide consistent, high-quality tissues for subsequent investigation. Animal husbandry of a high standard, together with minimisation of discomfort, is essential if the information sought by the investigator is to be valid and reproducible; an overview of these topics is therefore also incorporated in this volume.

Cats are the world's most popular domestic pet, as well as being wild animals. This comprehensive book on feline behaviour explores both the familiar domesticated animal and wild relatives such as the leopard, tiger and lynx to examine the Felidae family as a whole, allowing for fascinating comparisons between wild and domestic species and explanations of behaviour in pet cats with evolutionary origins. Fraser's work helps increase readers' understanding of cat behaviour - why they behave as they do, for what purpose and why. The focus is on identifying normal behaviour from the cat's perspective, with a welfare theme running throughout; as exhibitions of normal behaviour provide evidence of good welfare, and abnormal behaviour can be an indicator of poor welfare. Providing a veterinary perspective - by including coverage of feline physiology, life stages and reproduction - as well as an ethological one, this is an important read for veterinarians, shelter workers, animal behaviourists and students of veterinary medicine and animal welfare, while also being of interest to pet owners.