Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
~ Arnold Lobel [1933-1987] author of many popular children's books.
Compiled by Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, the Birdbooker Report is a weekly report listing the wide variety of nature, natural history, ecology, animal behaviour, science and history books that have been newly released or republished in North America and in the UK. The books listed here were received by Ian during the previous week, courtesy of various publishing houses.
Featured Title:
- James, David G. and David Nunnallee. Life Histories of Cascadia Butterflies. 2011. Oregon State University Press. Paperback: 447 pages. Price: $35.00 U.S. [Amazon UK; Amazon US].
SUMMARY: David G. James and David Nunnallee present the life histories of the entire butterfly fauna of a North American geographic region in exceptional and riveting detail for the first time in Life Histories of Cascadia Butterflies.
Virtually all of the 158 butterfly species occurring in southern British Columbia, Washington, northern Idaho, and northern Oregon are included in the book. Color photographs of each stage of life -- egg, every larval instar, pupa, adult -- accompany information on the biology, ecology, and rearing of each species.
Life Histories of Cascadia Butterflies will appeal to naturalists, hikers, amateur entomologists, butterfly gardeners, conservationists, students, and general readers of natural history. For scientists and dedicated lepidopterists, the book provides an unparalleled resource on the natural history of immature stages of butterflies in the Pacific Northwest -- and beyond, as many of Cascadia's butterflies occur in other parts of North America as well as Europe and Asia.
IAN'S RECOMMENDATION: A MUST have for those with an interest in Pacific Northwest Butterflies!
New and Recent Titles:
- Chinsamy-Turan, Anusuya (editor). Forerunners of Mammals: Radiation, Histology, Biology. 2011. Indiana University Press. Hardbound: 330 pages. Price: $60.00 U.S. [Amazon UK; Amazon US].
SUMMARY: About 320 million years ago a group of reptiles known as the synapsids emerged and forever changed Earth's ecological landscapes. This book discusses the origin and radiation of the synapsids from their sail-backed pelycosaur ancestor to their diverse descendants, the therapsids or mammal-like reptiles, that eventually gave rise to mammals. It further showcases the remarkable evolutionary history of the synapsids in the Karoo Basin of South Africa and the environments that existed at the time. By highlighting studies of synapsid bone microstructure, it offers a unique perspective of how such studies are utilized to reconstruct various aspects of biology, such as growth dynamics, biomechanical function, and the attainment of sexual and skeletal maturity.
A series of chapters outline the radiation and phylogenetic relationships of major synapsid lineages and provide direct insight into how bone histological analyses have led to an appreciation of these enigmatic animals as once-living creatures. The penultimate chapter examines the early radiation of mammals from their non-mammalian cynodont ancestors, and the book concludes by engaging the intriguing question of when and where endothermy evolved among the therapsids.
IAN'S RECOMMENDATION: For those with a technical interest in vertebrate paleontology, especially histology.
GRRLSCIENTIST COMMENT: These early mammals need some fur! - Feduccia, Alan. Riddle of the Feathered Dragons: Hidden Birds of China. 2011. Yale University Press. Hardbound: 358 pages. Price: $55.00 U.S. [Amazon UK; Amazon US].
SUMMARY: Examining and interpreting recent spectacular fossil discoveries in China, paleontologists have arrived at a prevailing view: there is now incontrovertible evidence that birds represent the last living dinosaur. But is this conclusion beyond dispute? In this book, evolutionary biologist Alan Feduccia provides the most comprehensive discussion yet of the avian and associated evidence found in China, then exposes the massive, unfounded speculation that has accompanied these discoveries and been published in the pages of prestigious scientific journals.
Advocates of the current orthodoxy on bird origins have ignored contrary data, misinterpreted fossils, and used faulty reasoning, the author argues. He considers why and how the debate has become so polemical and makes a plea to refocus the discussion by "breaking away from methodological straitjackets and viewing the world of origins anew." Drawing on a lifetime of study, he offers his own current understanding of the origin of birds and avian flight.
IAN'S RECOMMENDATION: There are two schools of thought on the origin of birds. Birds Are Dinosaurs (BAD) and Birds Are Not Dinosaurs (BAND). Feduccia is in the BAND school, which has lost favor among most paleontologists. If you're interested in the BAND arguments, I suggest you read this book.
GRRLSCIENTIST COMMENT: I am in the "BAD school" but I plan to get this book and read it with rapt attention! - Proctor Noble S. and Patrick J. Lynch. A Field Guide to the Southeast Coast & Gulf of Mexico. 2011. Yale University Press. Flexibound: 386 pages. Price: $24.00 U.S. [Amazon UK; Amazon US].
SUMMARY: This superb book, with its unique focus on the entire marine coastal environment, is the most comprehensive and up-to-date field guide available on the southeastern Atlantic Coast and the Gulf Coast. Not just for beachgoers, the book is essential for birders, whale watchers, fishers, boaters, scuba divers and snorkelers, and shoreline visitors.
Features of this guide:- Entries on 619 coastal and ocean species
- More than 1,100 color illustrations
- 450 up-to-date range maps
- Overviews of key ecological communities, including mangroves, salt marshes, beaches, sand dunes, and coral reefs
- Special attention to threatened and endangered species
- Discussions of environmental issues, including such catastrophic events as Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon blowout
- Glossary
- Excellent organizational aids for locating information quickly
IAN'S RECOMMENDATION: A good introduction to the natural history of the region.
GRRLSCIENTIST COMMENT: The Guardian's Mystery Birders will love this book! - Peat, Neville. Seabird Genius: The Story of L.E. Richdale, the Royal Albatross, and the Yellow-eyed Penguin. 2011. Otago University Press. Paperback: 288 pages. Price: $45.00 U.S. [Amazon UK; Amazon US].
SUMMARY: The first biography of Lance Richdale (1900-1983), who achieved international fame as the father of Otago's albatross colony from 1936 and for his research on the behaviour of the Yellow-eyed Penguin -- Time magazine dubbed him 'The Dr Kinsey of the penguin world' -- and the sooty shearwater, or muttonbird. Richdale grew up in Wanganui, took a tertiary course in agriculture in New South Wales, and returned to New Zealand to teach mainly in rural schools in the North Island for several years, eventually taking up a position with the Otago Education Board in 1928 as an inspiring itinerant agricultural instructor and nature study teacher.
Richdale never gave up his day job and incredibly in the weekends, holidays and evenings undertook major, meticulous and time-consuming research on penguins, albatrosses and several petrel species. His study of the muttonbird was achieved during prolonged solo camps on tiny Whero Island in stormy Foveaux Strait, where the wind blew straight from Antarctica.
Neville Peat's biography searches the traces left by this shy and obsessed man for some answers to two questions: why? and what drove him? Richdale's legacy is a nature tourism industry in Dunedin worth $100 million a year, and the longest-running seabird population study in the world.
IAN'S RECOMMENDATION: For anyone with an interest in seabirds and/or New Zealand birds. - Thomas, Peggy. For the Birds: The Life of Roger Tory Peterson. 2011. Calkins Creek. Hardbound: 40 pages. Price: $16.95 U.S. [Amazon UK; Amazon US].
SUMMARY: Roger Tory Peterson revolutionized the way we look at and appreciate birds, animals, and plants. Some kids called him "Professor Nuts Peterson" because of his dedication to his craft; yet he went on to create the immensely popular Peterson Guides, which have sold more than seven million copies, and which birders everywhere appreciate for their simple text and exquisite illustrations. Working closely with the Roger Tory Peterson Institute in Jamestown, New York, author Peggy Thomas and artist Laura Jacques have created a fascinating portrait of a global environmentalist with this very first children's biography of Peterson.
IAN'S RECOMMENDATION: For ages 8 and up. Adults interested in the life of Roger Tory Peterson will enjoy this book too!
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Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen is an avid and well-known book collector, especially to the publishing world. Mr Paulsen collects newly-published books about science, nature, history, animals and birds, and he also collects children's books on these topics. Mr Paulsen writes brief synopses about these books on his website, The Birdbooker Report.
