Customer Reviews

Peru (Travellers' Wildlife Guides)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The "Traveller's [sic.] Wildlife Guides" are designed for travelers who desire more background on a country's flora and fauna than one can typically glean from a national park brochure or even a good guide. The main strength of these guides is their relatively low price. Illustrated field guides for exotic destinations can easily cost over $60. These guides, by comparison, are a steal at just under $20. The main weakness is that they are not comprehensive. They provide information and illustrations for common birds, reptiles, mammals, and insects, but not for exotic species. Hence, serious birdwatchers will also need to purchase James F. Clements and Noam Shany's "A Field Guide to the Birds of Peru."

In every other sense, however, the Pearson guide is marvelous. The introductory chapters on Peru's ecotourism business, its geography and habitats, parks and reserves, and ecology and natural history are extremely well-written and highly informative. The second half of book is a field guide with pictures on one page and descriptions on the adjacent page. The descriptions are brief and to the point. They also contain symbols for the habitat types each species prefers. For common bird identification, I found this guide to be much easier to use in the field than the Clements and Shany guide, which provides pictures in one part of the book and descriptions in another. This book worked well as a companion to Clements and Shany because it enabled me to focus on common birds first and if I could not find my bird in the Pearson list, I then cracked open the Clements and Shany guide.

In addition to the Peru guide, Interlink Books also publishes "Traveller's Wildlife Guides" for Australia, Costa Rica, Belize and Northern Guatemala, Brazil, and Ecuador and the Galapagos.

I purchased this book to take with me to the Manu Reserve in Peru. It offered a very nice overview of the wildlife of the area, though I did see quite a few birds, reptiles and mammals that were not included. The illustrations and narratives are well done.
I wish the section on snakes was larger and the guide just touched on plant life.
My biggest wish is that the insect section would be expanded. There are 1,000 kinds of butterfly in Manu alone, yet the guide hardly touched the subject.
An all inclusive guide to all the plants, insects and wildlife would be far from portable, so if you are looking for a travel guide this does its job nicely. Hopefully you can carry this and let your guide haul around the Birds of Ecuador and other more comprehensive guides.

Part the Interlink Books "Travellers' Wildlife Guides" series, Peru provides identification and location information on Peru's most frequently seen animals. This 502 page identification guide offers full-color illustrations of more than 500 of Peru's most common insects, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. Enhanced with a species index, Peru provides up-to-date information on the ecology, behavior and conservation of the animals listed, as well as information on Peru's habitats and the most common plants visitors will encounter. With brief descriptions of Peru's most frequently visited parks and wildlife reserves, this handy, highly portable manual will prove to be an invaluable companion for appreciating the diversity and wonderful of Peruvian wildlife in their native settings.

Our Peruvian guide (who had been in the business for about 20 years) saw this book and salivated so much that we gave it to him at the end of our trip. Very complete, very well organized, pictures were wonderful. Great help in identifying species. Another guide said it was the bible of Peru Wildlife.

Excellent book,well presented, beautifully illustrated, full of good factual information enabling the traveller to pick and choose areas of interest in this totally amazing country.

Used this on our trip to Peru and it was the envy of our very knowledgeable tour guide. We ended up buying him a copy as a gift.

This book is an excellent intro primer for the ecotraveler. Its wildlife focus is mainly amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammalsts. Insects, fish, and plants get some mention. The book's country overview and its major habitat type descriptions, illustrations, and explanations are clear and useful as are the species photos and info. Thoughtful comments and info on conservation issues and ecotourism are included.

Half of the book is pictures and small descriptions of the
birds and other wildlife which is what I wanted (this is what the sample page showed). But the larger half of the book isn't very useful in the field, thus will make it too heavy to carry on our excursions.

We were going to the Amazon and Lima only, so much of this book was not pertinent to us on this trip. (We've been to the Andes/Cusco/Macchu Picchu before.) I was looking for a basic book on Amazon birds and animals, and found this to be the best compromise. I'd have preferred to buy the new Birds of Peru book instead, but the price was too high. The book is very heavy so be aware of that in your packing plans!

When I left for Peru, I wasn't sure what book to select. So, I hoped for the best with this book. When I got to the Rainforest, my personal guide called it the Bible. Every guide who saw me referencing the book, would immediately come up to me, take the book, and turn to the exact page where the animal was. I was really glad to have the book. In fact, one guide had a copy that was already on its last legs. I'd recommend this book if you are going on the Tambopata River.