Customer Reviews

A Gap in Nature: Discovering the World's Extinct Animals

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We've often heard about the loss to our world due to extinction. Flannery and Schouten put "faces" to this loss. These 'Ghosts of Species Past' represent just a handful of the things that we have directly or indirectly caused to disappear from the Earth. Many books try to give us an idea of the loss through descriptions and stories. What sets this book above the rest are the illustrations by Schouten. Often working with only skins, parts of the animal, or old drawings, he has created hauntingly beautiful illustrations of what these animals might have looked like were we to see them in their natural habitats. And that is what you will take away from this book, more than just the scope of loss, but the physical beauty and diversity that these animals represent. And that is a shame. Many of these animals were only seen a few times, so the information on them is sketchy, yet Schouten breathes life into these ancient corpses. The book's message will stay with you. Let's hope that we can cut back on contributing to the next volume in the world today.

"A Gap in Nature" is a truly extraordinary book. It gives details of many species that are lost to us forever. The illustrations are beautiful. Each species that is covered has a matching picture, its range, and reasons why it became extinct. The human species is mostly to blame for the loss of many of these creatures with destruction of habitat, over hunting, and introduction of disease and predators. Some of the species like the Dodo bird, the Great Auk, the Passenger Pigeon, and the Carolina Parakeet are well known whereas others are not known. It's very sad in a way. We have been able to save the California Condor and the Whooping Crane, but have probably lost the Dusky Seaside Sparrow, the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, and Bachman's Warbler in recent years. This book is excellent, but really only covers the tip of the iceberg when it comes to species we've lost forever.

"A Gap In Nature" by Tim Flannery and illustrated by Peter Schouten. Sub-titled, "Discovering the World's Extinct Animals." Atlantic Monthly Press, 2001.

When my grandchildren visit, they often ask me the classical question of how I can read a book without pictures. Not with this book! The pictures are the chief attraction of "A Gap In Nature". Organized by the Australian writer, Tim Flannery, this book collects in one place a tribute to the many species that have become extinct in the recent past, since the first voyage of Columbus.

The artist, Peter Schouten, spent years drawing life-sized portraits for each of the 103 animals, for the beautiful illustrations of this book. Schouten's brilliant, full color illustrations are a delight to look at, and will keep the attention of even a three-year-old boy. My grandson asked, "What's that?" as we turned the pages and then, "Is that a mouse?" when looking at the "Pig-footed Bandicoot" on pages 96-97. No, I found out that the Bandicoot was not a mouse, but rather an Australian marsupial, about "...the size of a kitten". I had never seen such an animal before, and that is the poignant message of this book. The beautiful pictures show animals that no longer exist.

The author, Tim Flannery, has previously expounded his thesis that the arrival of humankind heralded the extinction of so many different animals on so many different continents and islands. For example, in his recent book, "The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America and Its Peoples", Flannery ascribes the destruction of the mammoths, mastodons and giant sloths to the arrival of the first humans in North America some 13,200 years ago, in what he terms "a megafauna barbecue". In "A Gap In Nature", Dr. Flannery does not have to dwell too deeply on the culpability of humans in this worldwide extinction. It is enough to sit there and sadly turn page after page, picture after picture, of so many beautiful animals, which no longer exist.

This is a small book, under 200 pages with just 103 species shown. We all probably know that this is obviously nowhere near a true representation of the extinct animals that comprise what Flannery calls A GAP IN NATURE. What we see here is merely a small selection of some that have gone extinct in the last few hundred years. It's limited to birds, mammals, and reptiles, and only those that the artist had sufficient descriptions to work with.

The illustrations are beautiful and a quick browse through may leave you with a disturbing and lasting impression of just what colorful and variety of species has been lost. Flannery's descriptions are informative, if basic. One of the most noticeable features is the high representation of Island species. The Auckland Island merganser, Chatham Islands fernbird, and the Falkland Islands dog are long gone. So are species in Cuba, Guadeloupe, Hawaii, Jamaica, Labrador Island, Martinique, Seychelles, Swan Island, Tahiti, Tonga and Wake Island. Not yet mentioned is Mauritius which is known for one of the more shameful extinction stories - not the blue pigeon, but the Dodo.

The high representation of Island extinctions is not a surprise to persons familiar with the subject of biodiversity. Islands have some of the richest ecosystems on the planet. Unfortunately they are also some of the most vulnerable to both man-made and natural shocks.

This book is aimed at non-specialists, those taking introductory college level biology, or persons who are just beginning to be aware of what biodiversity is all about. If that's you and you enjoyed these beautiful illustrations but were saddened by the loss, I would encourage you to follow up by reading THE DIVERSITY OF LIFE by E.O. Wilson or David Quammen's book on Island Biogeography appropriately titled THE SONG OF THE DODO

I found this to be an excellent, but simple book. I say it in this way in that it is one that is a quick overview of the species involved, but also one that makes me appreciate what has been lost. It's not an in-depth biological study nor is it intended to be.

It's also has two sides in that it shows the wonder of nature and how amazing it is, but by the end of the book, it left me depressed. So much has been lost and this book makes me appreciate it. It give me the motivation to do what I can, however little that is, to perhaps help prevent this in the future.

I read this book several time and every time I went, "Wow!"

I've been doing research on animals that have gone extinct since European exploration and colonization in the Americas. It is nearly impossible to find descriptions and illustrations for many extinct animals let alone find the two in the same place. Tim Flannery and Peter Shouten have travelled all over the world, examined museum and collection specimens, collected writings and oral descriptions, and compiled them into text and beautiful illustrations depicting these lost animals. This book is amazing-from the breathtaking illustrations to the excerpts from letters discussing first-hand encounters with wildlife that is now lost. I can only hope these guys will continue their research and publish another book.

This book is a must have for the wildlife enthusiast, the teacher, and children.

This book is definitely a wakeup call to the fact that humans have and are causing the extinction of animals. The
beautiful paintings by Schouten portray what we have lost in a way not possible by text or statistics. Some birds, such as the Molokai 'O'o and Red-moustached Fruit-dove, may sound just like regular birds, but the paintings bring out their brilliant colors and unique shapes.

I don't think the pictures are quite as good or exciting as Schouten's newer book, "Feathered Dinosaurs", but perhaps that is unfair comparison. First, dinosaurs are simply more exciting. Second, we have little idea what feathered dinosaurs looked like, but we can afford to be more critical with representations of the Tasmanian Wolf. Regardless, the paintings are still wonderful and thought-provoking.

Another issue: the authors only include mammals, birds, and reptiles. They provide their reasons for doing so. Flannery also limits those included in the book to animals for which they have reliable drawings or descriptions. However, this excludes the Golden Toad. Thus, the majority of animals in the book are small birds and mammals, not megafauna or marine animals.

I'm enjoying the reading very much. But a little disappointed because I expected many more animals. It's completely understandable that the authors decided to write only on the species they chose. Also is very disappointing the lack of data about the extinct species, although it's not to blame on the authors, who made a comprehensive research.
The fact that the authors have chosen to write and draw only on those animals which they could find preserved guarantees great quality and accuracy reproduction. But I think it could be expanded in another book which dates back to the first migrations, or at least the lapse of writen history. Of course, there will be even less biologic data, and reproductions will be based on bones and semi-fossils, but it would have an even bigger impact.

A gap in nature is a good book to do reports for high school and college. After reading the first half of the book I decided that although people played a role in all these animals extinctions you really cant judge them too harshly on 3/4 of the animals. The intent of the author was not to place blame on anyone but rather just to catalog the animals that we have hard evidence that they existed and what they looked like. Most of the animals went extinct because of speciese being accidentaly realeased into new habitats. The only way to protect these animals would have been strong and organized governments protecting animals. This was not possible in the time peroids most of these animals went extinct in because the governments werent encompasing enough controll outside the cities in their territories. It was nearly impossible for a government in any form to protect animals outside its territory durring the age of collonialism and native and local governments were too weak and had more people oriented and short term problems to look after. Some animals were blatently hunted as pests or for profit. Those animals should have and in most cases could have been protected. Examples of those animals are the Great Auk and the Passenger Pigeon. Anyone who is curious about what kinds of animals (but not insects, water dwelling creatures, or any type of fungus or plant)went extinct should get this book because it is one of the very few sources to describe nearly all the different kinds this in depth.

Beautiful, interesting, well-written book, but it is clearly not intended as a scientific monograph, so if that is what you want you'd better look elsewhere.

Most of the species covered are rodents and birds, with some reptiles and larger mammals thrown in. All are beautifully illustrated.

While there are certainly many species in the book wiped out by direct human action (hunting & habitat destruction) in recorded history, most of the lost species seem to have been wiped out by indirect human action--the introduction of rats, cats, and foxes to the (usually) isolated island habitats by modern humans meant the end for the species which had evolved without these creatures. Interestingly, many of the species seem to have barely survived only in niche habitats even before the arrival of European colonists, etc. Two other species seem to have been wiped out by a volcanic eruption and a hurricane, respectively, in their very small habitats.

The book also records many instances of the last known specimens of clearly endangered species being killed by hunters and museum collectors (!), often identified by name. While it makes you wonder what makes these people tick, it sure seems like any species reduced to a handful of survivors didn't have long for this world in any event.

And the good news? Well, it sounds like many (by by no means all) of the lost species are survived--at least for now--by closely-related species. Hopefully we'll do better with these survivors!