Customer Reviews

The Mammals of Costa Rica: A Natural History and Field Guide (Zona Tropical Publications)

5 star:		(10)
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3 star:		(1)
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This book is handy for those who want to identify Costa Rican mammals, but it is especially appropriate for anyone who wishes to go beyond the simple question of "What's that?" It contains a wealth of natural history information on mammals' feeding, defecating, and sexual behavior. The author also describes ecological interactions and conservation issues. Hundreds of superb illustrations depict portraits of the animals as well as behaviors, food plants, and interesting details such as scats and penis bones. While the book focuses on species within Costa Rica, much of the information applies to mammals in Central America in general. The Natural History of Costa Rican Mammals serves as a fine reference book and a fun-to-read book at the same time.

This book is far more than a review of information about mammals in Costa Rica; it is also a good field guide and a useful text on applied conservation. The author is a professional guide in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve and as such is knowledgeable about a wide variety of natural history subjects. This book is primarily a review of the literature about mammals in not only Costa Rica, but elsewhere in Central America. It contains information widely applicable to other counties and the suggestions for conservation apply just as widely.

I have a pretty good library on wildlife in Central and South America and this beautifully done book is probably the best, not only about a specific group, but also about general issues. The drawings are excellent, the overall book is well put together and, the writing is clear, simple, accurate, and really first-rate. Buy this book even if you don't plan on traveling to Costa Rica.

A marvellous book, compact enough to be a field guide and yet informative enough to be a valuable reference work at home. As a field guide it is particularly valuable for its superb illustrations and also in showing and discussing things like scats, tracks, dens and sounds for those animals that one would like to see but might not! We'll certainly take it along again on our next trip. As a reference work it is excellent as a clearly and entertainingly written introduction to the natural history and conservation of Costa Rica's many fascinating mammals. It also has a comprehensive list of references to the primary scientific literature.

I own a broad range of field guides of regional faunas. This guide ranks extremely high in multiple areas. It has concise, complete information on ecology and natural history, excellent quality plates, and fascinating narratives based upon recent scientific literature.

I really like this book, I have used many Costa Rican field guides extensively, and this is my favorite for mammals. The illustrations are very good, the size is right for the field, and there is a lot of useful information on natural history. The text, while not "dumbed down" in the least is very readable and approachable. The text is also more fun to read than that in most other field guides. Great book and I highly recommend it if you will be in the area.

Most field guides provide very little information other than the features of the animal relevant to identifying it. Wainwright's book, however, contains loads of fascinating natural history information, written in an engaging, sometimes clever but never cute style.

O.K. for general natural history of relatively few species, but there are better field guides. More highly recommended is "A Field Guide to Neotropical Mammals".

The Mammals of Costa Rica: A Natural History and Field Guide The best field guide because the information is concise and the size of the book is easy to carry around on field trips.

By far the best guide I've seen for tropical mammals. It includes all information necessary in ID a mammal and understand the ecology of the organism. I met Mark Wainwright and he certainly knows what he's doing. I'm hoping he writes and illustrates a similar book on Costa Rican amphibians.

I have not had a chance to examine this book in depth, but I've looked through it a few times and it has all the essential info you would expect to find, and good photos too.

It certainly is worth the price and I'm glad we bought it!