Customer Reviews

The Pictorial Guide to the Living Primates

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book was highly recommended to me by a primatologist. I thought the book might be too technical but I found out otherwise. This book contains beautiful pictures and great information on wide range on primates. This is a great Christmas present for any animal lover or anyone interested in learning more on endangered primate species.

While I found this book to have very nice information that was well organized, the photos and the overall layout and design of the book left something to be desired. For a pictoral guide, the photos were very small, many appeared to have been scanned in at a less than adequate resolution and it was poorly laid out design-wise. Being a primatologist and a graphic designer, I praise the information presented, but think the photos are a disappointment. Also a bit overpriced I might add.

Noel Rowe's book on the primates of the world is a solid reference and extremely well organized. There are many photographs of rarely seen species, and to have them all in one place makes this a great sourcebook. The writing is clear and concise. Highly recommended.

This guide to the living primates is by far the best guide I have come accross in my studies. The author has gone out of his way to photograph the subjuct animals in their natural environment, relying on captive photos only when absolutely nescessary. I find myself using this book over and over, both professionally and personally. The photos are beautiful and the write ups are concise and well written. I love the page on Homo sapiens, which has a mirror instead of a photo. The write up on the humans is amusing as well. All in all the best of its kind. I really need to purchase another, mine is falling apart simply from use. A must for any physical anthropology student, environmentalist or nature lover.

This book has everything. There are pictures in here of virtually all 246 species (give or take a few). There are great summaries about each animal and a hearty set of basic references for each. I love this book and look at it all the time. A must for anyone who loves primates.

With beautiful photographs, this book examines individual species thoroughly, with up to date information and sources. wonderful for the interested, satisfying for the obsessed primatologist/conservationist!

Excellent text for veterinarians, research scientists, zoology and/or biology students or anyone interested in taxonomy and classification of primates. The color pictures are stunning, plus the information is informative and concise. The text shows geographical distribution biology and behavior.

This texts is a definite must for primate students.

I purchased this book as a quick reference and pictorial for primates. I work in the zoological business and this guide is a good first place to start when researching any particular primate species. It gives a quick synopsis on the natural history of each species and has been excellent for general primate information. This is a must for anyone who has a love of primates and wants to get a good idea of what the animal truely looks like.

The Pictorial Guide to the Living Primates is the most complete book of its kind that I've been able to dig up. Most others seem to go into great detail about SOME of the species, and give little or no mention about others. Rowe's book is very useful in that it will give at least some information about any known species. It is pricey, but in relation to other books about primates in general, this one is as close to being 'worth it' as they come.

With a title including the words "pictorial guide", you can probably gather that this book is heavily laced with photographs of primates throughout. It does not disappoint. This is certainly more "coffee table book" than a leisure read.

The book is layed out starting with prosimians and ending with great apes, documenting a total of 234 species of primates. Lemurs to capuchins, baboons to orangutans, colobi to gibbons, they're all covered. Each picture is accompanied with a brief but detailed write up, indicating a map showing the home range of the primate, general info on it's taxonomy, conservation status, social structure, and other facts. It's amazing to note how extremely tiny the home range of some of these species are, a barely distinguishable dot on the map.

I found it rather sad as I flipped through the wonderful pictures in this book, reading about these beautiful and intelligent creatures, how many of them had the status of endangered or critically endangered. It's depressing to think that if things keep going the way they are now, the only place these primates will exist in the future is on the pages of books like these.

I gave it five stars for excellent information, and for being one of the best collections of primate photos I've seen to date. Though the write-ups are scientific, I think even children would enjoy this book for the pictures. The photograph captions are easy to read, and often amusing.

*** Not to nitpick or second guess the author or his sources, but I have done some work with gibbons personally, and worked with people who have devoted their adult lives to gibbon research, and though it's written here that they fail self awareness tests (mirror tests), many (not all) gibbons have been shown to recognize themselves when presented a mirror.***