Sambar

Rusa unicolor

Meet the Sambar, one of the most widely spread Deer species in the world... and also one of the most confusing. Sambar can be found throughout South and Southeast Asia, and they have been introduced into the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. However, they vary greatly in size depending on their specific location. This has led to a lot of taxonomic confusion, and currently you might see them refereed to as both Rusa unicolor and Cervus unicolor.

Sambar can grow to some pretty huge sizes. Males have been recorded at over 600lbs! (That is more than double the average weight of the American White-Tailed Deer, for reference) Their antlers can also grow up to a meter long!

Like many Deer, Sambar are crepuscular, meaning that they are most active during dawn and dusk. They are typically solitary, though sometimes small groups of females and their young will forage together. Males live alone, and form aggressively defended territories during the breeding season.

Sambar have adapted very well to different habitat types, and can be found in all types of forested areas, from the very wet to the very dry. The habitat variety has also allowed them to consumes many different types of vegetation. Unfortunately, their adaptability has not kept them off of the Red List. They are currently ranked under "Vulnerable," due to hunting and habitat loss through many countries in their large range.

---

IUCN Status : Vulnerable
Location : South and Southeast Asia
Size : Length around 80in (2m), Average weight up to 400lbs (180kg)

Classification : Phylum : Chordata -- Class : Mammalia -- Order : Artiodactyla
Family : Cervidae -- Genus : Rusa-- Species : R. unicolor

Read More

A Gap In Nature

By Tim Flannery, illustrated by Peter Schouten
Hardcover : 192 pages
September 10, 2001

A Gap in Nature : Discovering the World's Extinct Animals is an illustrating world representing nearly all of the animals that have gone extinct since the year 1500. (A list in back contains other animals and the reasons for why they weren't included.)

Each entry contains information about the creature- where it lived, how it died, what its behavior was like- and a fully colored illustration. The book contains some well known extinctions, like the Dodo, the Passenger Pigeon, and the Carolina Parakeet. It also has dozens of animals that you may have never knew existed, like the Bulldog Rat and Atitlan Grebe.

What amazed me is the number of birds, and island birds at that. So many of those species were only found on a few tiny islands, and died out so quickly after human contact that we know little about them.

I'd recommend this book to any animal lover. The illustrations are gorgeous and the information is fascinating, but sad. It's a great read for learning about the human impact on the animal kingdom over the last 500 years.

Read More

Evolving Eden

By Alan Turner, Illustrated by Mauricio Anton
Paperback : 304 Pages
August 1, 2007

For the past 35 million years, the continent of Africa has been host to a plethora of evolving mammals of all shapes and sizes. Evolving Eden: An Illustrated Guide to the Evolution of the African Large Mammal Fauna, written by Alan Turner and illustrated by Mauricio Anton, outlines the natural histories of specific mammal groups, highlighting both extinct and extant species. After these outlines and an analysis of valuable dig sites on the continent, the book closes with an excellent summary that captures the rise and fall of the continent's various mammal families. This book is definitely accessible to the layperson, though I would recommend some background knowledge in the topic.

Read More

Prehistoric Mammals

By Alan Turner, Illustrated by Mauricio Anton
Hardcover :  192 Pages
October 1, 2004

Prehistoric Mammals is another wonderful pairing from the Turner/Anton super duo. It's an introductory book intended for a younger crowd, but even as an adult I really enjoyed it. The visuals are absolutely stunning and are found everywhere in the text. It has a really broad coverage of mammals dating back millions and millions of years, and profiles specific species from the well known to the relatively obscure. It additionally provides introductory information on mammalian evolution and the prehistoric time line. It additionally provides insight into how such wonderful artistic reconstructions are put together.

Read More

The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal

By Jared Diamond
Paperback : 432 Pages
Originally published January 1992, Paperback Edition January 2006

Even though The Third Chimpanzee is primarily about the evolution of humans, humans are still animals, and our primate relatives are featured strongly so I'm going to throw it a review and add it to the list. While some of the information in this book is now out of date (Homo sapiens did cross-breed with Neanderthals after all!) it still paints a great portrait of why we are who we are, and how close our link to modern primates actually is. Did you know that the common ancestor between humans and chimpanzees is more recent then that between chimpanzees and gorillas? The version I picked up is a reprint that includes an afterward addressing new developments in anthropology since the initial printing (like Homo floriensis) so if you can grab the 2006 edition, it adds a bit more!

Read More

The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea

By Philip Hoare
Hardcover : 464 Pages
February 2, 2010

It's a bit hard to describe exactly what The Whale is. It's part biology, part history, part memoir, part literature, part travel guide. Overall, it is the story of the author and his experiences with whales. A great deal of this book deals with the whaling industry, paralleling the author's journey with Moby Dick, Ishmael, and the life of Melville himself. But at the same time it is a work of natural history, explaining the hows and whys of whales and their place within the ocean and within human history and industry. It was a fascinating work, and the inspiration for at least one of my posts (with more to come I'm sure.)

Read More

Last Chance to See

By Douglas Adams, Mark Carwardine
Paperback : 256 Pages
October 13, 1992

In 1988, writer Douglas Adams teamed up with zoologist Mark Carwardine to travel the word and see some of its rarest and most spectacular animals. Their journey was made into BBC radio series, as well as a book that Adams penned.

In Last Chance to See, we follow these two as they search for the Aye-aye, the Kakapo, the Northern White Rhino, the Baiji, the Komodo Dragon, Mountain Gorilla, and the Rodrigues Fruit Bat. These are all species that were down to scarily low numbers.

Fact : The Kakapo is the cutest bird.

While the material is now dated*,  the book was a delight to read. I'm a big fan of Adams and his Hitchhiker's Guide series, and the book reads with his same voice and sense of humor. It's amazingly entertaining, on top of being an informative work on some of the most critically endangered species of the time.

Not too long ago, Stephen Fry and Mark Carwardine went back and revisited some of the animals from the original 1988 trip (Adams died in 2001), this time making a video documentary series. I'm seriously considering buying the DVD off Amazon. Stupid Netflix.

*The Baiji is now extinct, the Northern White Rhino is most likely extinct in the wild, and other species have been rebounding well due to conservation efforts.

Read More

Witness to Extinction: How We Failed to Save the Yangtze River Dolphin

By Samuel Turvey
Paperback : 256 Pages
October 15, 2009

Witness to Extinction: How We Failed to Save the Yangtze River Dolphin is without a doubt, one of the saddest books I’ve ever read. It is the true life account of the final Yangzte River Survey to locate any remaining Baiji, and the story of the Baiji and Chinese conservation in general.

Turvey, who was the lead author on the paper that announced the probable extinction of the species back in 2006, cares deeply for this subject, and pours out his frustration with the international conservation community. I had never realized the amount of bureaucracy involved, it gets really infuriating just reading it. The book details all of the failed efforts over time, juxtaposing them with the successes and failures of other species around the world.

QiQi, the only successful captive Baiji

I’m really glad I read this book. It gave me new insight into wildlife conservation and all of the steps and measures required to save a species from being gone forever. Unfortunately, Turvey’s Yangtze Project was too late, and the fabled River Dolphin is most like extinct. Witness serves as a passionate and well-written warning to scientists and lay-people alike about the fragility of our endangered species and speed at which they can disappear without true, proactive help.

Recommended to anyone with an interest in Dolphins, Endangered Species, or Conservation in general.

Read More

The Big Cats and Their Fossil Relatives

By Alan Turner
Illustrations by Mauricio Anton
Harcover : 233 Pages
April 15, 1997

The Big Cats and Their Fossil Relatives is a book in a very similar vein to Dogs: Their Fossil Relatives and Evolutionary History, and it even includes illustrations by the same artist, Mauricio Anton. In this text Turner looks only at the big cats- Lions, Tigers, Leopards, etc.- and explains where they came from, who their now-extinct ancestors were, and how and why they have the specific adaptations that they possess. It gives a clear picture of the evolution of Big Cats, and explains nearly every function of their anatomy and how it corresponds to their social, mating, and hunting behaviors.

This book is not "light reading" but if you have an interest in feline evolution and physiology, definitely take a look. It also has some exceptionally beautiful illustrations and plates by Anton that help to visualize these creatures of the past.

Read More

Dogs: Their Fossil Relatives and Evolutionary History

By Xiaoming Wang and Richard H. Tedford
Illustrations by Mauricio Anton
Hardcover : 232 Pages
July 14, 2008

You know, I had never thought about dentition before reading Dogs: Their Fossil Relatives and Evolutionary History. Probably not something that most people think about, but it sure opened my eyes! Just learning about why the teeth of dogs are the way they are, why cats are so different from dogs, and how every single piece of their anatomy evolved over millions of years to serve such specific purposes was absolutely fascinating.

The illustrations are also amazing, and cover the extensive history of dog evolution over time. Not the most accessible book for all general readers, but worth it for anyone with a real interest in canine evolution, or of mammalian biology in general.

Read More

Evolving Eden

New Bibliography Entry:

Turner, Alan and Mauricio Anton. Evolving Eden : Evolving Eden: An Illustrated Guide to the Evolution of the African Large Mammal Fauna. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.

For the past 35 million years, the continent of Africa has been host to a plethora of evolving mammals of all shapes and sizes. This book, written by Alan Turner and illustrated by Mauricio Anton, outlines the natural histories of specific mammal groups, highlighting both extinct and extant species. After these outlines and an analysis of valuable dig sites on the continent, the book closes with an excellent summary that captures the rise and fall of the continent's various mammal families. This book is definitely accessible to the layperson, though I would recommend some background knowledge in the topic.

Read More