Book Description
It looks like a bear, but isn’t one. It climbs trees as easily as a monkey— but isn’t a monkey, either. It has a belly pocket like a kangaroo, but what’s a kangaroo doing up a tree? Meet the amazing Matschie’s tree kangaroo, who makes its home in the ancient trees of Papua New Guinea’s cloud forest. And meet the amazing scientists who track these elusive animals.
Customer Reviews:
Quest for the Tree Kangaroo--Its not just for kids!.......2007-06-15
I received this book from a thoughtful, loving, and dear kindred spirit of a friend and while it is being marketed as a children's book, I found that it was just as wonderful as an animal lover's or even a conservationists' (organic-free trade-decaffeinated) coffee table book. Nic Bishop's up close and personal photography is beyond any Life Magazine or National Geo quality color photos. Sy Montgomery's writing takes the reader along on the expedition with all the science, language and even a bit of humor provided in part by the guides. Montgomery has created a fun book for kids and adults alike! A great gift for high school graduates to inspire them to follow their dreams and passions. For kid's, this would make a cake science report book!
beautiful book, fascinating creature!.......2007-04-13
the photos are great, i just wish there were more. i am not very interested in the human beings that performed the research, and wish there was more about the animals...
Amazon.com
In Throwim Way Leg, Australia-based mammologist-raconteur Tim Flannery recalls scientific expeditions in the wilds of New Guinea that convey both the thrill of discovery and the negotiations necessary to bridge huge clashes of cultures. A world expert on New Guinea's fauna, Flannery has discovered 20 new species during his two decades of research. Yet his ability to convey unalloyed adventure in his taletelling makes these scientific expeditions read more like hair-raising, funky Redmond O'Hanlon-style travels than disciplined, scholarly field trips. Energy and danger run high.
Terrific thunderstorms and aircraft mishaps rattle Flannery during his travels. Yet the most memorable quality of Throwim Way Leg is Flannery's incorporation of humans into the natural world he writes about, often contrasting the jungled New Guinea denizens with stark modern technologies. He writes rich profiles of those he has met, and his images are memorable and meaningful: crowds of people gaping at a single television set; the remote landscape of Mt. Albert Edward dotted with cattle, Swiss chalets, and the smoky fires of the Goilala people; the malnourished Yapsiei greeting him reeking of the "sweet, sickly smell" of grile, a form of ringworm.
Ultimately, Flannery looks ahead and sees that the age of discovery is not at all complete in New Guinea, as so much remains unknown. But, in an often-told tale, modern political forces are at work, reshaping those unique natural and cultural environments that Throwim Way Leg explores with such vigor. --Byron Ricks
Book Description
Flannery travels to the unexplored regions of New Guinea in search of species that science has yet to discover or classify. He finds many -- from a community of giant cave bats that were supposedly extinct to the elusive black-and-white tree-kangaroo -- and along the way has a wealth of unforgettable adventures. Flannery scales cliffs, descends into caverns, and cheats death, both from disease and at the hands of the local cannibals, who wish to take revenge on his "clan" of wildlife scientists. He eventually befriends the tribespeople, who become companions in his quest and whose contributions to his research prove invaluable. In New Guinea pidgin, throwim way leg means to take the first step of a long journey. The journey in this book is a wild ride full of natural wonders and Flannery's trademark wit, a tour de force of travelogue, anthropology, and natural history.
Customer Reviews:
Interesting story - biological and anthropological.......2006-08-20
Flannery is the Principal Research Scientist at the Australian Museum. This book recounts several of his expeditions in Papua New Guinea and Irian Jaya in the 80s and 90s.
He's the opposite to Douglas Adams. In approaching some similar topics in his `Last Chance to See' Adams was primarily a writer. Flannery is primarily a biologist - the writing came second. Thus there's not the wit, and the style is often understated. In some cases this is quite charming as he pretty casually relates some harrowing incidents (such as getting stuck alone in an underground crevice). In contrast his vocabulary can get a bit ostentatious: he'll use always use a word like `ossuary', for example, rather than graveyard, and in one case he used a word I've forgotten now that from the context must mean something like overeating, but didn't even appear in my complete Macquarie dictionary. (Ah, another amazon reviewer had the same problem, although they were impressed by the obscure vocabulary, while I was unimpressed by same: 'farcarted' gets nothing from any online dictionaries - the only place it turns up in a google search is in these perplexed amazon reviews. Maybe it's an in-joke.)
These are exotic places and creatures, and Flannery capably recalls some real adventures. Part of the strange appeal of this book is shaking your head at some of the near-insane deprivations and risks his biological obsession has entailed (hence the insightful description of another reviewer, `bloody mad scientist'). Moreover half the fascination is anthropological. He generally does very well walking the line between eulogising and demonising the tribal Papuans. He ably conveys some of the dilemmas of contact between ancient and modern, such as the time when in all good faith he acceded to requests to sharpen all the knives in a village, but then was appalled to see several villagers accidentally cutting themselves deeply because they'd never had anything but blunt edges. He does tend towards the assumption that any loss of traditional culture is automatically bad, but honestly allows us to see some ugly things that challenge this assumption.
Towards the end of the book, as much to his chagrin as ours, we're not able to merely enjoy the excitement of discovery of species because of the context of ugly mistreatment of Irian nationals by their Indonesian conquerors. I got the feel that none of us wanted this to be a `political' book, particularly not a partisan one, but in telling his story it becomes unavoidable. Flannery again to his credit is very careful not to say `all Indonesians', or `all the mining company workers', but sadly his biological expeditions are somewhat overrun just at the end by encounters with some brutal racism, at times incidental, at others structural.
Amazing scientist, unexceptional writer........2006-05-16
Without a doubt Tim Flannery ranks with the world's greatest scientist/explorers. He has a wealth of fascinating and valuable tales to tell from his travels to New Guinea. However, the book has little coherent structure. It's just a series of (mostly) unrelated stories, like he might recount over dinner. The details of his trips are incredible, but by the time I was half way through, I began losing my interest and felt I was re-reading previous passages.
Breathtaking, humorous and poignant.......2004-09-09
Flannery is one of a kind. He is to New Guinea what Perry and Amundson are to the poles, a first-comer .... one of the first to explore and document the stone age peoples of the mysterious island wilderness in the last days of its age of innocence.
Yes, there are cannibals, with bones in their noses and gourds worn on their penis, yet Flannery somehow manages to get the reader to empathize with these people, to understand their foibles and traditions, and to feel regret that their ancient ways are going, going, gone ... forever. Take the chapter where he goes in pursuit of the Bulmer's Fruit Fly Bat -- you suffer with him the agonies of failure and the desperations of the search, and the exhilaration of success. Or follow along with his learning experiences among the native tribes and come to actually understand the hows and whys of the way the led their lives, even to discovering there were (to the natives) valid reasons for their rare acts of cannibalism.
Although he describes some of the most spectacular natural wonders of the world, the reader comes to know that Papua New Guinea will never rate very highly as a tourist destination, but you'll have to read this book to appreciate the reasons why.
Think you couldn't possibly be interested in such things? Try twenty pages of this charming book; the images will lived in your memory forever.
Hooroo, Tim! Bonzer yarn, mate!
Exciting and sometimes hilarous natural history book.......2003-05-26
I thoroughly enjoyed this wonderful book! In it, mammalogist Tim Flannery regales us with tales from his many years in New Guinea, searching for new species of mammals on the island, the second largest in the world. A difficult island to work in - highly mountainous; extremely few roads, most villages so isolated that they can only be reached by small planes flying to landing strips hacked out of the jungle; parts of it some of the rainiest spots on earth, some areas receiving 11 meters or more of rain a year; possessing many dangerous animals ranging from crocodiles to snakes to huge spiders; tropical diseases and parasites a real problem in many areas (including malaria and scrub typhus, from which Flannery almost died from when bit by an infected tick) ý Flannery had his work cut out for them as he spent over two decades on the island, both in the eastern half, the independent nation of Papua New Guinea, and the western section, Irian Jaya, part of Indonesia.
Flannery is a highly accomplished scientist, having discovered 16 new species of mammals in Melanesia, many of them in New Guinea. Many of these and others are described in the book, and make for fascinating reading. We meet the Black-tailed Giant-rat, the bite from its two centimeter long razor sharp incisors much feared by the inhabitants of the island. The Three-striped Dasyure, a vividly marked rat-sized marsupial predator, one of New Guinea's few mammals active during daylight hours. The Snow Mountains Robin, one of the rarest birds in the world, found in the high alpine regions of the Meren Glacier in Irian Jaya, one of the very few equatorial glaciers in the world. _Antechinus, a small carnivorous marsupial notable in that the male only lives for 11 months, existing only to breed. The diminutive, dingo-like New Guinea singing dog, which arrived in the islands some 2,000 years ago. The six o'clock cicada, a tremendously loud insect that received its name from its trill it emits roughly 6am and 6pm daily. The famous Birds of Paradise, breathtaking in their beauty, several species of which are extremely rare. He also describes the Long-fingered Triok, a black and white skunk smelling possum with the fourth finger of each hand a great elongated probe for finding insect larvae; you never know what he is going to find next lurking in the barely explored misty peaks and dripping jungles of the island.
Three of the most remarkable animals are ones that Flannery discovered or in one case rediscovered. One is _Maokopia ronaldi_, an extinct marsupial herbivore that once dwelt in the high mountain forests. Panda-like in appearance, size, and probably habits, Flannery named this new genus and species from fossils he found in Irian Jaya. Bulmer's Fruit-bat, a bat though extinct for 12,000 years, the largest cave dwelling bat in the world, Flannery was elated to have found them alive in extremely rugged western Papua New Guinea. The one though that Flannery is the most proud of discovering was the Dingiso, a new species of tree-kangaroo he found in the alpine areas of Irian Jaya, a beautiful black and white animal, surprising tame, threatened but fortunately partially protected by native taboos against harming them.
However, as remarkable as all of that is, one could argue that the real stars of this book are the people of New Guinea, particularly the indigenous Melanesian peoples that Flannery spends a great deal of time with and clearly loves. Much of his time researching in the field he was based out of the villages of such people as the Wopkaimin, the Telefol, and the Goilala where he became fast friends with many throughout the island, in both countries, viewing them not as savage barbarians, but as noble, often quite kind people, their older generation vast repositories of cultural and natural history lore. One of the most enjoyable aspects of the books were the many stories about life in those villages, some of the tales tragic, others heartwarming, and many hilarious.
Particularly fascinating was what he wrote about the history of cannibalism on the island. Apparently it did exist in the not too distant past, actually in the living memory of some of the villagers he encountered. Though not an every day occurrence by any means, cannibalism was an important part of New Guinea life; indeed, one group Flannery spent some time with, the Miyanmin, were once avid raiders, and actually referred to the neighboring Atbalmin people as ýbokis es bilong miplea,ý which more or less translates into something like ýour refrigerator.ý Though cannibalism is now a thing of the past, its effects are still felt he writes, as villages once got some of their population from raids of other villages, the adults of that village were consumed and the children raised as their own; now, that is no longer a source of new people for villages and some are facing some depopulation as a result.
Flannery sounds several cautionary notes in his book. Several species of New Guinea mammals and birds are in serious danger of extinction from over hunting. Though New Guinea is still a land largely without roads, more and more appear all the time, opening up virgin lands for hunters, loggers, and miners. Indeed in Irian Jaya the latter two are devastating ever larger sections of the island; the massive Freeport mine, which exports over ten million dollars worth of minerals daily, has destroyed large sections of forest with waste mine tailings.
He also worries about the future of the people, particularly in Irian Jaya. He believes that in an attempt to make that land more like the rest of Indonesia it is causing not only environmental damage but also cultural damage. Indeed there are concerns over human rights abuses in Irian Jaya, of dissidents disappearing, of remote villagers forced to wear modern clothing and abandon their pig eating culture by distant Muslim politicians, who often find native culture abhorrent.
Recommended.
Heights of discovery.......2002-06-12
If Tim Flannery isn't the luckiest biologist in the world, then perhaps he's the hardest working. He possesses a spirit of adventure that may exceed both. His twenty years of exploring the mysteries of New Guinea are superbly outlined and related in this engaging account. Although a mammalogist by profession, his interests range far beyond any academic discipline. We follow his efforts to meet and gain acceptance by the remote peoples of the New Guinea highlands. They are a diverse lot, and every new contact is fraught with uncertainty. He introduces us to the teasing pleasures of New Guinea pidgin, a language adopted by indigineous peoples to cross the nearly 1 000 languages that exist on the island.
Throwim' Away Leg, New Guinean pidgin for a journey, is an appropriate title for this book. Flannery's 15 long-term expeditions took him over most of the island, meeting the people, tracking animals and assessing the changes in the ecology. It is difficult, in this jet travel age to comprehend the impact of "remote people," but Flannery has done it. He's adept at sharing the wonder he felt in his travels. We feel his fears, his joys of discovery, his sadness at the incursion of industrial civilization in an unprepared land. Flannery's account is given with an astonishing detachment. He recognizes the needs of both the indigenous people and the invaders. Cannibalism, so abhorrent to "civilized" readers, is placed in its true framework as viewed by the New Guinean mountain peoples. He's aware of the population pressures on local resources among the tribes, not excusing, but imparting rare understanding of the reality of life in wilderness.
The author's love of wildlife is made clear throughout the book. An encounter with three-metre-long python that tried desperately to throttle him is related with incredible compassion. One can only sympathize with the pilot and passengers who shared the cockpit of a small aircraft with it on its journey to Port Moresby. Flannery's real feelings, however, are for the varieties of tree kangaroos living on the island. He asserts the high point of his travels was the classification of a rare black and white species of this creature. High point, indeed! Three
thousand metres up in the New Guinean highlands, local hunters brought him the chewed remains of two "Dingisios" - enough to identify and describe this rare animal.
Flannery's enthusiasms and vivid desriptive powers make this book an unforgettable read. His descriptions of the impact of outsiders, from both East and West, portray a land under immense stress. Not only Western mining and lumber companies, who have seared the landscape with roads, mines and felling, but Indonesia's settlement programmes come under his penetrating gaze. He recognizes their needs, but urges better forms of accomodation are required. The biological story is conveyed well integrated with social, political and environmental issues. An all-encompassing study, this book will give the reader many fresh insights and topics for further reflection.
Book Description
In 1982, Rachel Smolker traveled to Monkey Mia, a remote spot in western Australia where she’d heard wild dolphins regularly interact with people. She had no intention of staying long; she simply wanted to see if the rumors were true. That initial trip changed Smolker’s life; it commenced a fifteen-year scientific obsession that has culminated in this fascinating scientific adventure story–the first-ever intimate account of dolphin life in the wild.
To Touch A Wild Dolphin is a seminal work that radically alters our fundamental understanding of these enigmatic creatures. Learning to identify scores of dolphins by their dorsal fin, Smolker and her team of scientists were able to conduct close and consistent studies that revealed the dolphin to be even more intelligent than we’d previously suspected. And while they were every bit as playful as we’ve known them to be, they also proved to have a dark and alarmingly violent side. But more than just a document on dolphins, this book is a touchingly personal look at the life of a scientist, at the rigors and sacrifices but also the wonders and joys of unending days in the field. Written with prose poetic and pristine, this book is nothing short of a landmark.
Customer Reviews:
A fascinating book!.......2007-08-14
I loved this book. I have always been interested in dolphins and was intrigued to learn how they live. Their connection with humans seems so close, like they are as interested in learning about us as we are about them. This woman's story of her time with the dolphins made me wish I was there too. I read the book a couple of years ago and still think about it. Some of her stories still make me laugh when I think of them. A fascinating story!
From a dolphin lover in the highest degree.......2006-03-10
I'm passionate about dolphins, and I couldn't get through the book. I felt as if the author didn't like dolphins, and didn't really respect them. I hate to be saying this about a book that seemed at first glance so wonderful, but I didn't feel as if the book protrayed positive feelings. I just feel as if the author doesn't like dolphins, and I think that a book that is written in a way that might seem emotional, but doesn't portray true feelings or a love for the creatures that are said to be loved. If the tone is to be set in one way, the words used should reflect that tone.
This book.......2004-09-20
I'm reading this book with my Mom and it's pretty good. It's very interesting how the author got to study the dolphins.
to see dolphins in action.......2003-11-11
Also check out - Captain Jon Explores the Ocean (also on amazon).
Amazing.......2003-05-03
Ever since I was a little girl, I've always been fascinated by dolphins. My career goal is to work with dolphins, in any shape or form, but particularly in the research aspect. I picked up this book while browsing the library one day and fell completly in love with it. It definitely reconfirmed my dream of working with these wonderful creatures, but I also learned a lot about their behaviors and personalities. It also shows that dolphins are not all the same--they actually have unique personality traits. I was so awed by this book that I gave in and decided to buy it--I should receive it in a couple days so I'm looking forward to reading it until it is worn out!! I recommend this book to anyone and everyone who is curious about dolphins. Happy reading!
Book Description
This fully revised and updated edition of A Field Guide to the Mammals of Australia is the only comprehensive guide to identifying all 379 species of mammals known in Australia. This book provides concise and accurate details of the appearance, diagnostic features, distribution, habitat, and
key behavioural characteristics of all mammals known to have occurred in Australia or its waters since the time of European settlement. Each double-page spread provides all the information needed to identify an animal, a full-color illustration of the entire animal, a smaller diagram of diagnostic
features, a distribution map, and species description and measurements, including details of how to differentiate between similar species. Identification keys are provided for groups that are difficult to identify to species level, including keys to the genera of small marsupials, rodents, and bats,
and all marine mammals likely to be washed on to an Australian beach: whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals, and the Dugong.
Customer Reviews:
best field guide for mammals of australia.......2006-06-20
In fact, it is the only real field guide to the mammals of Australia. The Australian museum book is great of course, but is a reference book for home, whereas this is the perfect field guide. The drawings are pretty well spot and capture the look of the animal in the field quite well. Also, very recent. Great book, and good value.
Mammals from the Down Under.......2003-01-23
I've been doing alot of research on illustrating various Australian Mammals and found that this book is the most compacted of all reference materials. You get the whole animal to view. So many times when cross researching you find yourself struggling to figure out what the animals feet really looks like, this book I find is really helpful.
THE field guide.......2002-12-16
Peter Menkhorst's book is widely regarded as THE field guide to the mammals of Australia. Compact and easy to use, with fantastic illustrations by Frank Knight, its a must for anyone interested in identifying Australia's diverse mammalian fauna.
Average customer rating:
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Whose Furry Nose?: Australian Animals You'd Like to Meet
Henrik Drescher
Manufacturer: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 Zoology
| Science, Nature & How It Works
| Children's Books
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Baby-3
| Children's Books
| Subjects
| Books
Mammals
| Animals
| Biological Sciences
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0397322364 |
Customer Reviews:
Full of Facts About These Beautiful Animals.......2000-08-31
Koalas are one of the most beautiful, gentle and loving animals in the world. Sadly, the population is steadily declining due to the destruction of their natural habitats. This book is a wonderful way to learn about these very intelligent creatures. Full of darling pictures, everyone who picks up this book will instantly fall in love with koalas (who, by the way, are not bears)! Read about their habits, diet and social activities, and you will develop a new appreciation for these fuzzy friends!
Koalas for All.......2000-03-02
This is a wonderful book on many counts. Information isabundant, so you can use it for reports. But the best part is thedelightful photos of koalas at sleep, play, and the dinner table. I left out "work" because it doesn't seem to be in their vocabulary. One or two of the views of relaxing, snoozing koalas are alone worth the price of the book. Instead of reciting a mantra or meditating to relax, all you need do is look at those photos. A book for all ages.
Average customer rating:
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Australian Mammals: Biology and Captive Management
Stephen Jackson
Manufacturer: CSIRO Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Mammals
| Animals
| Biological Sciences
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
Mammals
| Zoology
| Biological Sciences
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
Mammals
| Zoology
| Biological Sciences
| Professional Science
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0643066357 |
Book Description
Winner of the 2004 Whitley Medal.
Shortlisted in the Scholarly Reference section of the 2004 Australian Awards for Excellence in Educational Publishing.
This authoritative volume represents a complete and comprehensive guide to the husbandry of Australian marsupials and other mammals. Australian Mammals: Biology and Captive Management dedicates a chapter to each group of animals including the platypus, the echidna, carnivorous marsupials, numbats, bandicoots and bilbies, koalas, wombats, possums and gliders, macropods, bats, rodents and the dingo.
For each animal group the following information is covered:
Biology
Housing
Capture and restraint
Transport
Diet
Breeding
Artificial rearing
Behaviour and behavioural enrichment
The book provides a complete literature review of all known information on the biology of each group of animals and brings information on their biology in the wild into captive situations. Also, for the first time, it provides practical guidelines for hand-rearing, and has been extensively reviewed by zookeepers and veterinarians to incorporate the most up-to-date information and techniques.
Australian Mammals: Biology and Captive Management provides practical guidance for zoo-keepers, veterinarians, zoologists, researchers and students.
Average customer rating:
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Haematology of Australian Mammals
Phillip Clark
Manufacturer: CSIRO Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Animals
| Biological Sciences
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
Mammals
| Animals
| Biological Sciences
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Biology
| Biological Sciences
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
Hematology
| Internal Medicine
| Medicine
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Veterinary Medicine
| Medicine
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Veterinary Medicine
| Medical
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0643068309 |
Book Description
Haematology of Australian Mammals is a valuable guide to collecting and analysing the blood of Australian mammals for haematological studies and diagnosis and monitoring of disease.
It outlines general principles for selecting sites for blood collection and for handling and analysing samples to achieve quality results. Chapters then describe the morphology and function of haematological cells, with reference to the known characteristics of Australian mammals in health and the changes that may be encountered in response to common diseases. Haemoparasites that have been encountered in Australian mammals are discussed next, along with comments on their pathogenicity. Lastly, haematological values from previously published studies are compiled into species-specific tables, providing a convenient reference to compare to the results of clinical cases.
Written descriptions and colour photomicrographs of haematological cells from more than 100 species aid the identification of cells and the detection of abnormalities. Information is provided throughout for representative species from all the major groups of native Australian mammals including monotremes, polyprotodont marsupials, diprotodont marsupials, rats and mice, bats and marine mammals.
Book Description
After weeks at sea, Jody and her family have arrived at Hervey Bay, off the coast of Australia. There, Jody befriends a gorgeous pink-and-white dolphin named Dawn.Jody notices a neighborhood tourist operation isn't keeping the dolphins' interest in mind and, as a result, Dawn becomes ill.Will Jody be able to convince them to change their ways before its too late?
Customer Reviews:
A Nice Book.......2006-07-17
Leaving the shallows is a fun, creative and imaginative book. Jody first sees Dawn, a humpback dolphin. Later, Dawn becomes ill, and Jody tried to warn the people who were feeding the food, which was making Dawn sick, to stop, but then one of them said that Dawn was hungry anyway. My opinion is that this book is a good story with adventures everywhere. My favourite part is the end because I like mostly happy endings. I recommend readers 7 years old and above . It is a very attractive book.
Dolphin Diaries #9.......2005-07-14
We want more!!! I have been reading this series to my son Zeke since we accidently discovered the first book while vacationing in Florida. We love it! Everything about dolphins/whales/marine biology is of great interest, and I appreciate how the author ties the tropical/aquatic themes and love of nature in with great moral lessons about understanding where different people are coming from. Many kudos for this series, and is # 10 ready yet??
Lori Lynn
If you like dolphins and want to learn more about them,.......2005-04-24
read this series. I read this series two summers ago when my friend loaned them to me. I was sick most of the summer. Even though I was stuck inside, the books took my mind to out on the ocean, and before I knew it, I felt like I was there swimming and learning about dolphins myself.
~MY ONLY confusion about this series is that when I went to buy the series for myself all the books I found had a different author, same story, same cover, but different author on the front cover. All my friend's books say Lucy Daniels one the front as theauthor, but all the books I find online and in stores have Ben M. Baglio written on the front as the author.
~Can someone please explain this to me?
Book Description
Packing an off-kilter sense of humor and keen scientific minds, Margaret Mittelbach and Michael Crewdson, along with renowned artist Alexis Rockman, take off on a postmodern safari. Their mission? Tracking down the elusive Tasmanian tiger. Tragically, this mysterious, striped predator was hunted into extinction in the early part of the twentieth century. Or was it?
Journeying first to the Australian mainland and then south to the wild island of Tasmania, these young naturalists brave a series of bizarre misadventures and uproarious wildlife encounters in their obsessive search for the long-lost beast. Filled with Rockman’s stunning drawings of flora and fauna originally crafted from river mud, wombat scat, and even the artist’s own blood, Carnivorous Nights is a hip and hilarious account of an unhinged safari, as well as a fascinating portrayal of a wildly unique part of the world.
Carniverous Nights is:
One of the New York Public Library's "25 Books to Remember from 2005"
A New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age, 2006 selection
Customer Reviews:
A ROLLICKING ADVENTURE.... FUN!.......2007-10-02
This book is a wonderful celebration of wildlife--what's lost and what still survives--in a beautiful and strange part of the world. But what makes Carnivorous Nights great is the oddball voice of its narrators.
While appalled by the destructive forces that pushed the Tasmanian tiger to the edge of extinction, the authors manage to find beauty and humor in the amazing creatures--and people--that still populate this far-flung island.
The illustrations are black-and-white watercolors of Tasmania's animals. And they're like ghostly photos of a long-lost world.
This book really stuck with me, and made me want to travel to Tasmania.
Great disappointment due to the filthy language and crude humor.......2007-08-05
Being an avid fan of the Thylacine, I had great hopes for Carnivorous Nights. Boy was I disappointed!!!!! "The Last Thylacine" 2005 by Terry Domico ISBN 1883385156 is a far better book.
There is some very good information in Carnivorous Nights but it is covered by filthy language (the F word every few pages) and Middle School level humor (nipple clamp joke on page 111, many references to scat or other bodily functions in a so-called humorous manner, etc...) Additionally, I did not like the glorification of illegal drug use by one stoned adventurer who seemed to focus his life around his next hit of weed.
I also did not care for the artwork. It was simplistic and not especially inspiring. The black and white images were just basic and nothing special. I thought some of them looked like they were traced over old photos.
A truly good book could have been here if the authors had just had some common decency and maturity. Not everyone speaks with a potty mouth, nor do all adults think of mating habits and sexual issues all the time about all of nature. Unfortunately, reading Carnivorous Nights was more like digging through a dung heap looking for treasure. Too bad that in this case the treasure was not worth the garbage it was covered in.
An informative book but unfortunately bad choices in writing style.......2007-05-04
Carnivorous Nights on the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger follows three New Yorkers, authors Margaret Mittelbach and Michael Crewdson and their artist friend Alexis Rockman as they search for the Thylacine, or Tasmanian Tiger. The thylacine is presumed to have been hunted to extinction with the last known individual dying in Beaumaris zoo in 1936. There have been many sightings since then and many still hold hope the Thylacine persists somewhere on the island of Tasmania.
As you might expect, the trio find little evidence of the Tiger in their travels but provide a lot of information on its natural history and some of the more credible recent sightings. They also spend a lot of time checking out Tasmania's many other non-extinct weird and wonderful animals, and I believe they give a good feel for the general atmosphere on the Island. I read this book a few months prior to my own trip to Tassie and it lead me to visit Marakoopa caves and check out the glow worms, which was really fantastic. As far as an informative and interesting book on the wildlife of Tasmanian goes, it earns five stars.
I had to take two stars off however for what are basically stylistic reasons. Normally this doesn't bother me too much, but in this case it turned what would have been a great book into something that was a bit of an effort to read.
The first problem is that this book intends to be a bit of a wacky-travel-adventure read. That in its self is fine (check out Redmond O'Hanlon's "Into the Heart of Borneo" for a perfect example of how it can work) but the problem here is that we have three Americans traveling in Australia, a first world English speaking country. Let's face it, they don't have any really wacky adventures. In fact the attempt to have wacky adventures seems to distract from the book and dumbs down the text a bit. (see pg. 10 "... we were happy to find out that English was spoken on the island.") Nevertheless the authors try to keep the humor up by making lots and lots of quips. Mostly unfunny quips in my opinion. Most other reviewers found this book funny, and I usually enjoy a humorous travel book (Bill Bryson) but most of this was just off for me. Most of the 'humorous' dialog is attributed to Alexis, which resulted in my wishing about halfway through the book that he'd just keep his mouth shut. But I have to admit I took an early disliking to Alexis due to what was probably the worst part of the "travel adventure" side of the text, his purchase of pot (illegal in Australia as in the US) and his smuggling it around the country. There is something about a tourist abroad willfully committing a crime that is also a crime in his own country that I find really distasteful, and I was sorry to see it treated as a sort of comic aside in this book. To be even handed to poor Alexis, his artwork featured in the book is beautiful and I loved his choice of media.
The second problem and really the worst aspect of the book for me was the narrative voice. Since the book was written by two authors and covered their personal experiences, they opted to refer to themselves as 'WE'. Bad idea. While I can't really offer a better suggestion for two authors to have an equal say in a tale, using 'we' is a bad way to go. At times it was fine, at times it sounded like a married couple, at times it sounded like a olde time king, and at times it sounded like a missive from the Borg. To see how bad it gets one can read the dream sequence on page 118 "That night we dreamed about wombats and feral cats..." Actually I recommend using the search inside function to read a few pages and see whether or not this style will bother you.
A final gripe that is probably worth a third of a star or so is that this book lacks an index, which is probably indicative of its trending to pulpy mass media marketing as opposed to a more intelligent natural history text. And yet it does have a decent set of notes and further reading in the back. While I haven't read any other works by these authors, it feels like they are smart natural history writers lead astray by an editor asking for a dumbed down text in the hope it will have a boarder appeal.
In short, if you have an interest in Tasmania, the Thylacine, or Australia travel in general I can recommend purchasing this book, but I was sorry to see a potentially fantastic book severely damaged by some bad editing decisions.
Everything you want.......2006-10-02
Funny, deep and educational. Environmentally aware and a fantastic travel story. What else could a person want?
The book centers on the Tasmanian tiger but threads through cloning, giant lobsters and other strange Tasmanian beasties, extinction, hope and, of course, all manner of strange Tasmanian scenes.
funny and depressing.......2005-10-29
The book is depressing because it's about extinction and endangerment; it's funny because our authors manage to stay optimistic and cheerful in the face of extinction. They have an extremely clear eye for the foibles of humans, as well as for the traits of the animals they see. It takes talented writers to make roadkill amusing; these guys manage it.
If you've ever read Gerald Durrell, then you would find this book similar, both in the attitude toward travel and the observations of native humans. The humor is somewhat similar, too, although of course Durrell's is a bit dated by now. If you read and enjoy this book, then I'd strongly encourage you to go find and read anything you can by Gerald Durrell, especially his earlier books.
Completely by coincidence, during the same week that I read this book, I read a story by Harry Turtledove in a science fiction magazine, and an article in a newspaper about lemurs. Turtledove's story was about an alternate history where the island of Atlantis did not sink, and it has a great deal of unique island wildlife, like Tasmania or Madagascar. The plot of the story was that John James Audubon goes to visit Atlantis to sketch and paint all the endangered wildlife there - because of course, the incursion of man onto the island has endangered most of the species. The story highlights the casual cruelty of 19th-century practices, killing rare animals just to pose and paint them and stuff them for museums; I contrasted that to the care that Mittlebach et al. take not to kill anything, and Alexis' efforts to connect to the animals he is painting by using their bioproducts to make paint. Then the article in a Maine newspaper was about a 14-year old who had saved money since she was 6 years old to go to Madagascar and work on lemur conservation; she accomplished her trip finally, and I felt that the viewpoint of the young generation on the many endangered island animals also added to my appreciation of what the authors of "Carnivorous Nights" were seeing on Tasmania.
The paintings in the book are wonderful; I only could wish some were in color. I have always been fond of wombats, echidnas, and platypodes (or platypuses if you want to simplify it), and have stuffed toys of each (yes, I am half a century old and have a large collection of plush toy marsupials, insectivores, extinct reptiles, and assorted endangered species) and had the fun of meeting an echidna face to face once; it was the short-beaked kind, not the long-beaked one, but still odd enough.
A short "family-reading" alert: while the topic is ideal for kids, there are a few things some parents might object to - assorted unmarried people sharing hotel rooms, more than a few four-letter words, a lot of discussion of blood, gore, and animal parts. I personally don't think there's anything here an 11-year old wouldn't already have met, but your children may vary, and I suspect that more than one 8-year old would have nightmares after the scene about feeding a Tasmanian devil. But definitely, the whole family should get to see the pictures, and get to hear about baby pademelons and Bennett's wallabies!
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