Customer Reviews

Flattened Fauna, Revised: A Field Guide to Common Animals of Roads, Streets, and Highways

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Roger Knutson, a biologist at Luther College, IA, has put together a truly ingenious little book. A guide to the "really most sincerely dead" animals one often sees along streets, roads, and highways. While some may dismiss this book as a parody of other field guides, it is full of accurate, meaningful biological information about animals that frequent roads and roadsides, and that often find themselves smashed into two dimensions.

Is this book funny? Yes! Is it a parody on other field guides? Perhaps.

So, what is this book about anyway? This is a guide to the animal remains left behind after most carrion feeders and decomposers are done with a dead animal. EEEeeewwwww. OK, OK, perhaps it is a bit grotesque, but there is meaningful biological information to be had there.

The book is well written, it is fun, and can be used throughout much of North America.

It makes a great gift for the natualist on your gift list. After all, let's face it, most of us spend more time on the road than we do out "in" nature.

As a biologist myself, I give this book 5 stars for biological content and for the tongue in cheek approach to this somewhat unsavory topic.

Give it a try! Or give it to someone else.

This is a wonderful book for many reasons. The slam on the snob journals, where they list the camera used (the author studiously lists the photocopier that best took the image) is one of my favorites. True, death isn't funny (or pretty), but hey, it is a jungle out there. If you are kind of a weenie, and can't bear to think of Bambi and Thumper buying it on the freeway, this is not the book for you. But with a title like "Flattened Fauna", why on earth would you consider buying it?

This book is a gem in terms of dark humor. If that's your thing, you will enjoy it very much. If you think the world is full of sweet, adorable little animals bucking up on hind legs, talking in helium-altered baby voices, find a more suitable book, possibly in the children's section.

This book makes a great gift for the person who has everything! It certainly gets people's attention....and actually, you can identify the "flattened fauna" spotted while hiking with this book. I liked it.

"This is a book about animals that, like the Wicked Witch of the East in The Wizard of Oz, are not just merely dead but really most sincerely dead. These are animals in which even flies have lost interest." So begins the introduction to one of the most unusual wildlife guides ever written.
The many Rorschach-like, black ink illustrations provide key clues to identifying creatures that, unlike the fabled chicken, failed to make it to the other side of the road. "The toad's tendency to flatten itself against the ground when threatened or afraid produces a uniform road pattern. The illustration is drawn from an actual specimen (male). Females are somewhat larger." "This illustration was drawn from and dead road runner, and is included to show something of the serenity achieved by a few road animals. The frantic pace of constant food-seeking has slowed considerable here. Regardless of traffic speed, the bird is clearly at rest."
Flattened Fauna is not a politically incorrect nor frivolous book. This is a legitimate guidebook based upon years of research by the author, who teaches biology at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. It has statistics: "Various historical estimates place the density of flattened animals at from 0.429 to 4.10 animals per mile of prime highway habitat." History: "A reliable 1897 report from North Dakota gives evidence of at least one large snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina) flattened under the steel-rimmed wheels of several loaded wagons." And, of course, environmental: "Road carrion is among the major reasons why flesh-eating animals become part of the flattened fauna. Ground squirrels nibble on bats, opossums on ground squirrels, and skunks on opossums, providing a fine two-dimensional example of the balance of nature."
The various chapters identify numerous species and habits of reptiles, amphibians, birds, and small mammals. Unlike other guidebooks that focus on habitats where animals live, Roger Knutson takes a different perspective: the habitat where they died. He's not the first to do so, but his humor raises this study out of the dusty bins of academia to make this little book (5 x 8 inches and 80 pages) one that you'll read from cover to cover.

Life in suburbia is grand. When my daughter was 4, my wife ran over a squirrel and started crying over is as my daughter said, "He must have been in an awful hurry to see his family." Although I'm fortunate enough to live close enough to protected open space for our street to play host to a family or two of deer, road kill is about the closest I come to seeing anything beyond a momentary "Something wild ran by," so this comes in handy. There's a lot of raodkill in various shapes, and after three days, about the only way you're going to be able to figure out what it once was is this guide.

This book should be translated in Finnish, so all my fellow countrymen could enjoy it. In spite of all the gore, the overall idea is to bring the miracles of nature closer to the man on the street.

I bought the first edition of this book years ago and laugh every time I read it. My favorite part is the place in the back where you can record your sightings. I was happy to see this is still in print and in a newer edition which I bought for a gift.

For me personally, the days of "Look, Daddy! A hedgehog's left his coat in the road!", coupled with the dilemma of whether - or how best - to disabuse a five-year-old, are long gone. Carcass-hunting detours, at the special request of somewhat older offspring, are no longer part of my duties as a driver. Polite society does not generally encourage us to exhibit overt curiosity about roadkill, despite its grisly fascination, and we learn early to moderate such a penchant in the presence of others. Even so, the appeal quietly endures.

More recently, moving home from suburban Hillingdon (West London) to rural Dorset, my interest was rekindled. Instead of the near-monochrome assortment of grey squirrel, pigeon and the odd mouse, there was now an altogether more colourful array of fox, pheasant, badger and even deer. I have always (I now realize) instinctively looked upon these objets trouvés as Art, as pieces capable of prompting philosophical reflection in the observer. It had not struck me that the subject might also be a Science.

Professor Knutson's book (revised and updated in 2006) is a work of considerable scholarship in this lightly trod area of natural history. His subject matter is found far more often than it is discussed, but he has the courage to address the topic head-on. His Introduction sets the tone: road fauna (fauna itinerarius) is a scientific term, properly used to classify any animal that has lost "not only its life but also its third dimension" - one "in which even flies have lost interest."

With tongue firmly in cheek, he presents his material in the classic style of the conventional field guide: he covers the Road as Habitat, the History and Future of Road Fauna, its Seasonal Nature (that "flurry of inactivity on the road" in spring), and Mimicry and Protective Coloration (how to tell apart a rusted hubcap and a painted turtle, for example, and how "road chameleons show no color change under any circumstances"). He gives guidance on how and where to study road fauna in North America, on animal posture and presentation, the most dangerous animals on the road, and five good reasons why not to collect specimens. There are separate chapters on Road Snakes, Legged Reptiles and Amphibians, Road Birds and Road Mammals, in which aspects such as habits and abundance, field marks and range are described. Prof Knutson eschews colour photographs throughout in favour of silhouettes, often alongside a rectangle representing a standard width lane marker, drawn to scale: a thoughtful touch.

The content has a predominantly North American focus, although Prof Knutson rightly states that the principles of observation and study apply universally and he is actively seeking data from further afield. To promote understanding of the world's road animals there is now an International Simmons Society, named after the author of the poetically-titled, ground-breaking 1938 classic "Feathers and Fur on the Turnpike". Reporting forms (a proforma of which is printed in the book) can be mailed to the Society's HQ in Michigan.

Aside from the slightly macabre humour, the book contains a wealth of serious, factual information about bird and animal habits and characteristics, population densities, distribution and migration; I felt I learned a lot. And though the automobile has evolved much faster than the animals with which it may come into contact, it seems there is encouraging evidence that rats and perhaps also hedgehogs are already adapting to the changes in their world. Amid the carnage, a ray of hope for the future.

i got this book for my ex-boyfriend (before we broke up). he's a country boy and he loved this book.

I purchased this book for my son, who drives alot as a pizza delivery guy. I don't recall the price, but it is a very thin book, and not worth whatever I paid. it is funny though, and an unusual subject....