SUBJECT INDEX:
NATURE
- NATURE: Animals
- NATURE: Apes & Monkeys
- NATURE: Birds & Birdwatching
- NATURE: Butterflies & Moths
- NATURE: Ecology
- NATURE: Environmental Conservation & Protection
- NATURE: Essays
- NATURE: Flowers
- NATURE: Fossils
- NATURE: General
- NATURE: Horses
- NATURE: Insects & Spiders
- NATURE: Lakes & Ponds
- NATURE: Mammals
- NATURE: Marine Life
- NATURE: Mushrooms
- NATURE: Natural Resources
- NATURE: Plants
- NATURE: Reference
- NATURE: Reptiles & Amphibians
- NATURE: Weather
- NATURE: Wildlife
- 100 Butterflies and Moths
- Large-format photographs of 100 tropical butterflies and moths gathered in the forests of northwestern Costa Rica document the dazzling variety of the butterflies and moths unique to this region. The authors recount these insects' feats of mimicry and migration, lift the veil on their courtship, and show how the new technology of DNA barcoding is changing the picture of Lepidopteran biodiversity.
- Hardcover 2007 / Paperback 2009
- 100 Caterpillars
- Gathered by biologists in the tropical forests of Costa Rica, over 100 large-format photographs of caterpillars document the dizzying variety of shapes, vivid colors, and cryptic markings among these species. The pictures are accompanied by capsule species accounts and magnificent images of the adult butterfly or moth. Throughout, the authors convey an intimate sense of these creatures by focusing on how their features figure in their behavior and ecology, and on the beauty of nature in this life stage.
- Hardcover 2006 / Paperback 2009
- Aglow in the Dark
- with a foreword by Sylvia Nasar
- The discovery of green fluorescent protein revolutionized molecular biology, transforming our study of everything from the AIDS virus to the workings of the brain. Aglow in the Dark follows the path that took this glowing compound from its inauspicious arrival on the scientific scene to its present-day eminence as one of the most groundbreaking discoveries of the twentieth century.
- Hardcover 2006 / Paperback 2007
- The American Horseshoe Crab
- Carl N. Shuster, Jr., H. Jane Brockmann, and Robert B. Barlow are at the forefront of research on Limulus polyphemus, and in this book they bring together twenty scientists who have worked on all aspects of horseshoe crab biology to compile the first fully detailed, comprehensive view of the species. An indispensable resource, the volume describes the horseshoe crab's behavior, natural history, and ecology; its anatomy, physiology, distribution, development, and life cycle; the puzzle of its immune system; and its present management and future conservation.
- Hardcover 2004
- Among Orangutans
- In a narrative that is part adventure, part field journal, part call to conscience, van Schaik introduces us to the colorful characters and complex lives of the orangutans who inhabit the vanishing forests of Sumatra. Here are the births and deaths, the first use of a tool, the defeat of a rival, the gradual loss of influence that, while fascinating to observe, may also help us to reconstruct human evolution.
- Hardcover 2004
- Approaches to Faunal Analysis in the Middle East
- This volume addresses the methodology and application of a faunal analysis, specifically as it pertains to data from the Middle East. Topics include a wide range of approaches to the study of the faunal remains, from the methodology of investigating issuses of domestication to the utilization of computer analysis in the identification of remains.
- Paperback
- Asian Honey Bees
- with a foreword by Thomas D. Seeley
- Benjamin Oldroyd has teamed with Siriwat Wongsiri to provide a comparative work synthesizing the rapidly expanding Asian honey bee literature. The authors underscore the pressures colonies face and detail the long and amazing history of the honey hunt. This book provides a cornerstone for future investigations on these species, insights into the evolution across species, and a direction for conservation efforts to protect these keystone species of Asia's tropical forests.
- Hardcover 2006
- Audubon: Early Drawings
- In 1805, Jean Jacques Audubon fled revolutionary violence in both Haiti and France to take refuge in frontier America. Ten years later, John James Audubon was an American citizen whose desire to “become acquainted with nature” led him to reinvent himself as a naturalist and artist. The drawings he made during this crucial decade, of specimens he collected in France and in America, are published together here for the first time in large format and full color.
- Hardcover 2008
- Beautiful Minds
- Beautiful Minds explains how and why apes and dolphins are so distantly related yet so cognitively alike and what this teaches us about another large-brained mammal: Homo sapiens. Noting that apes and dolphins have had no common ancestor in nearly 100 million years, Bearzi and Stanford describe the parallel evolution that gave rise to their intelligence.
- Hardcover 2008
- Bird Coloration, Volume 1, Mechanisms and Measurements
- How birds produce the brilliant and striking coloration of their feathers and other body parts is the focus of this first volume of Bird Coloration. It has been more than 40 years since the mechanisms of color production of birds have been reviewed and synthesized. Geoffrey Hill and Kevin McGraw have assembled the world's leading experts in perception, measurement, and control of bird coloration to contribute to this book. This sumptuously illustrated volume synthesizes more than 1,500 technical papers in this field.
- Paperback 2006
- Bird Coloration, Volume 2, Function and Evolution
- In this companion volume to Bird Coloration: Volume 1, Mechanisms and Measurements, Geoffrey E. Hill and Kevin J. McGraw explain the function of the colorful displays of birds and examine the factors that shape the evolution of color signals. This sumptuously illustrated book will be essential reading for biologists studying animal coloration, but it will also be treasured by anyone curious about why birds are colorful and how they got that way.
- Hardcover 2006
- The Birder’s Bug Book
- Gilbert Waldbauer, a veteran entomologist and an accomplished birdwatcher, presents an excellent introduction to the intricate interplay of insects and birds, with a beguiling blend of anecdote, ornithology, and entomology. Profusely illustrated with drawings and color photographs, this book offers a cornucopia of facts about the life history and behavior of insects and birds.
- Hardcover 1998 / Paperback 2000
- Bolton's Catalogue of Ants of the World
- Barry Bolton's New General Catalogue of the Ants of the World, published in 1995, was the first attempt in more than one hundred years to collect all taxonomic decisions for ants worldwide, including extinct as well as extant taxa. The new edition incorporates all taxonomic papers--from 1758 through 2005--on 14,550 species and subspecies of ants.
- CD-ROM 2007
- Built for Speed
- North America's fastest mammal, the pronghorn can accelerate explosively from a standing start to a top speed of 60 miles per hour--but it can also cruise at 45 miles per hour for many miles. What accounts for the speed of this extraordinary animal? And what is it like to be a field biologist dedicating twenty years to studying this species? In Built for Speed, John A. Byers answers these questions as he draws an intimate portrait of the most charismatic resident of the American Great Plains.
- Hardcover 2003
- Cheating Monkeys and Citizen Bees
- Biologist Lee Dugatkin outlines four paths to cooperation shared by humans and other animals: family dynamics, reciprocal transactions (or "tit for tat"), so-called selfish teamwork, and group altruism. He draws on a wealth of examples--from babysitting among mongooses and food sharing among vampire bats to cooperation in Hutterite communities and on kibbutzim--to show not only that cooperation exists throughout the animal kingdom, but how an understanding of the natural history of altruism might foster our own best instincts toward our fellow humans.
- Paperback 2000
- Chimpanzee and Red Colobus
- This book, the first long-term field study of a predator-prey relationship involving two wild primates, documents a six-year investigation into how the risk of predation molds primate society. Taking us to Gombe National Park in Tanzania, a place made famous by Jane Goodall's studies, the book offers a close look at how predation by wild chimpanzees--observable in the park as nowhere else--has influenced the behavior, ecology, and demography of a population of red colobus monkeys.
- Hardcover 1998 / Paperback 2001
- Christianity and Ecology
- What can Christianity as a tradition contribute to the struggle to secure the future well-being of the earth community? This collaborative volume, the third in the series on religions of the world and the environment, explores problematic themes that contribute to ecological neglect or abuse and offer constructive insight into and responsive imperatives for ecologically just and socially responsible living.
- Paperback 2000 / Hardcover 2000
- The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume I, Nature, Addresses, and Lectures
- Hardcover 1971
- Common Lands, Common People
- In this innovative study of the rise of the conservation ethic in northern New England, Richard Judd shows that the movement had its roots in the communitarian ethic of countrypeople rather than among urban intellectuals or politicians. Drawing on agricultural journals and archival sources, Judd demonstrates that ordinary people, struggling to define the morality of land and resource use, contributed immensely to America's conservation legacy.
- Hardcover 1997 / Paperback 2000
- Coyote at the Kitchen Door
- A moose frustrates commuters by wandering onto the highway; an alligator suns himself in a strip mall parking lot. In Coyote at the Kitchen Door, Stephen DeStefano draws on decades of experience as a biologist and conservationist to examine the interplay between urban sprawl and wayward wildlife. Coyote at the Kitchen Door asks us to rethink the meaning of progress and create a new suburban wildlife ethic.
- Hardcover 2010
- Daoism and Ecology
- The authors in this volume consider the intersection of Daoism and ecology, looking at the theoretical and historical implications associated with a Daoist approach to the environment. They also analyze perspectives found in Daoist religious texts and within the larger Chinese cultural context in order to delineate key issues found in the classical texts.
- Paperback 2001 / Hardcover 2001
- The Discovery of Global Warming
- In 2001 an international panel of climate scientists announced that the world was warming at a rate without precedent during at least the last ten millennia. The story of how scientists reached that conclusion was the story Weart told in The Discovery of Global Warming. The award-winning book is now revised and expanded to reflect the latest science.
- Paperback 2008
- Dogs
- The juxtaposition and explanation of images as diverse as Greek pottery, Victorian jewelry, Assyrian sculpture, and Japanese netsuke, illuminates our understanding of the place of dogs in human society around the world. This book explores these cultural expressions and reflections of our deep and long-standing interest in dogs.
- Hardcover 2008
- Dry
- This beautifully illustrated book tells the diverse stories about people in very hot, very cold, or very high places, who spend their lives collecting, chasing, piping, and trapping the water that life requires. In a world of finite resources, where the struggle for shrinking sources of water intensifies daily, these stories are a source of hope and wonder.
- Hardcover 2006
- The Dynamic Dance
- Using dynamic systems theory, an approach employed to study human communication, King is able to demonstrate the genuine complexity of apes' social communication, and the extent to which their interactions generate meaning. As King describes, apes create meaning primarily through their body movements--and go well beyond conveying messages about food, mating, or predators.
- Hardcover 2004
- The Earwig's Tail
- Throughout the Middle Ages, enormously popular bestiaries presented people with descriptions of rare and unusual animals, typically paired with a moral or religious lesson. In The Earwig’s Tail, entomologist May Berenbaum and illustrator Jay Hosler draw on the powerful cultural symbols of these antiquated books to create a beautiful and witty bestiary of the insect world.
- Hardcover 2009
- Ecology without Nature
- Morton argues that the chief stumbling block to environmental thinking is the image of nature that most writers promote: they propose a new world view, but their very zeal to preserve the natural world leads them away from the "nature" they revere. The problem is a symptom of a far deeper situation: of accepting the idea of "ecology without nature." To have a properly ecological view, we must relinquish, once and for all, the idea of nature.
- Hardcover 2007 / Paperback 2009
- Egg & Nest
- Alongside Rosamond Purcell’s stunning photographs, Linnea Hall and René Corado offer an engaging history of egg collecting, the provenance of the specimens in the photographs, and the biology, conservation, and ecology of the birds that produced them.
- Hardcover 2008
- Emily Dickinson's Herbarium
- Emily Dickinson's album of more than 400 pressed flowers and plants, carefully preserved, has long been a treasure of Harvard's Houghton Library. This beautifully produced, slipcased volume now makes it available to all readers interested in Emily Dickinson. Introduced by a substantial literary and biographical essay, and including a complete botanical catalog and index, this volume will delight scholars, gardeners, and all readers of Emily Dickinson's poetry.
- Hardcover 2006
- Environmental Health
- Environmental Health has established itself as the most succinct and comprehensive textbook on the subject. This extensively revised and rewritten third edition continues this tradition by incorporating new developments and by adding timely coverage of topics such as environmental economics and terrorism.
- Hardcover 2004
- The Environmental Imagination
- With the environmental crisis comes a crisis of the imagination, a need to find new ways to understand nature and humanity's relation to it. This is the challenge Lawrence Buell takes up in The Environmental Imagination. With Thoreau's Walden as a touchstone, Buell gives us a far-reaching account of environmental perception, the place of nature in the history of Western thought, and the consequences for literary scholarship of attempting to imagine a more "ecocentric" way of being. In doing so, he provides a major new understanding of Thoreau's achievement and, at the same time, a profound rethinking of our literary and cultural reflections on nature.
- Paperback 1996 / Hardcover
- Faces in the Forest
- The woolly spider monkey, or muriqui, is one of the most threatened primate species in the world. Because of deforestation in their natural habitat--the Atlantic coastal forests of southeastern Brazil--the muriquis are confined to less than 3 percent of their original range. This book traces the natural history of the muriqui from its scientific discovery in 1806 to its current, highly endangered status. Karen Strier provides a case study of this scientifically important primate species by balancing field research and ecological issues.
- Paperback 1999
- The Fire Ants
- In The Fire Ants, Walter Tschinkel provides not just an encyclopedic overview of Solenopsis invicta but a lively account of how research is done, how science establishes facts, and the pleasures and problems of a scientific career. The reader learns much about ants, the practice of science, and humans' role in the fire ant's North American success.
- Hardcover 2006
- For Love of Insects
- Imagine beetles ejecting defensive sprays as hot as boiling water; female moths holding their mates for ransom; caterpillars disguising themselves as flowers by fastening petals to their bodies; termites emitting a viscous glue to rally fellow soldiers--and you will have entered an insect world once beyond imagining, a world observed and described down to its tiniest astonishing detail by Thomas Eisner. The story of a lifetime of such minute explorations, For Love of Insects celebrates the small creatures that have emerged triumphant on the planet, the beneficiaries of extraordinary evolutionary inventiveness and unparalleled reproductive capacity.
- Hardcover 2003 / Paperback 2005
- Fossil Invertebrates
- The plates in this book capture incredibly detailed impressions and casts of ancient life, contrasting them with forms, such as the horseshoe crab and the chambered nautilus, that persist today virtually unchanged. Paul D. Taylor and David N. Lewis, both of the Natural History Museum, London, have written a comprehensive and accessible resource, one that provides undergraduates and amateur fossil enthusiasts with a means to understand and interpret this rich fossil record.
- Hardcover 2005 / Paperback 2007
- Green Sisters
- Green sisters are environmentally active Catholic nuns working to heal the earth as they cultivate new forms of religious culture. Inviting us into their world, Taylor offers a firsthand understanding of the experiences of women whose lives bring together orthodoxy and activism, and whose lifestyle provides a compelling view of sustainable living.
- Hardcover 2007 / Paperback 2009
- Harvestmen
- This is the first comprehensive treatment of a major order of arachnids featuring more than 6,000 species worldwide, familiar in North America as daddy-longlegs but known scientifically as the Opiliones, or harvestmen. The 25 authors provide a broad taxonomic and ecological background for understanding this major arachnid group, the book should give field biologists worldwide the means to identify specimens and provide an invaluable reference for understanding harvestmen diversity and biology.
- Hardcover 2007
- Hispaniola
- Biodiversidad a Través de un Recorrido Fotográfico
- A Dominican-based conservationist and photographer, Fernández is documenting the efforts of a distinguished team of international scientists as they unravel the workings of evolution being played out on the island of Hispaniola. What Fernández captures here so vividly is not just the amazing variety of living creatures that have erupted in evolutionary isolation, but the urgency of scientists racing to give that variety a name before it vanishes.
- Hardcover 2007
- Horses
- The remarkable relationship between people and horses has been evoked in art from the beginning of the bond between them. In this beautifully illustrated book, Catherine Johns explores the horse in art from the ancient world to the modern era. From the Horse of Selene to Persian miniatures and prints by Duerer, Stubbs, and Hokusai, this book will inform, entertain, and delight horse lovers and all readers interested in this inspiring animal and its profound contribution to human culture.
- Hardcover 2007
- Imagining the Nation in Nature
- Focusing on the heart of German romanticism, the Rhineland, Thomas Lekan examines nature protection activities from Wilhelmine Germany through the end of the Nazi era to illuminate the relationship between environmental reform and the cultural construction of national identity. Lekan's examination of Nazi environmental policy challenges recent work on the "green" Nazis by showing that the Third Reich systematically subordinated environmental concerns to war mobilization and racial hygiene.
- Hardcover 2004
- In Pursuit of the Gene
- Schwartz presents the history of genetics through the eyes of a dozen or so central players, beginning with Charles Darwin and ending with Nobel laureate Hermann J. Muller. This book offers readers the background they need to understand the latest findings in genetics and those still to come in the search for the genetic basis of complex diseases and traits.
- Hardcover 2008 / Paperback 2009
- In the Company of Mushrooms
- Few of us realize that mushrooms, humbly thriving on decay, are crucial to life on Earth. In this book a distinguished molecular biologist reveals the power of these curious organisms--not quite animal, not quite plant--to enchant and instruct, to nourish and make way for all sorts of superior forms of nature. From the biology of our favorite fungi to tales of the truffle hunt, Schaechter brings contagious enthusiasm to the story of mushrooms.
- Hardcover 1997 / Paperback 1998
- Indigenous Traditions and Ecology
- The authors, a diverse group of indigenous and non-native scholars and environmental activists, address urgent questions facing indigenous communities as they struggle with threats to their own sovereignty, increased market and media globalization, and the conservation of endangered bioregions.
- Paperback 2001 / Hardcover 2001
- Insects through the Seasons
- The unparalleled success of insects is the story told in this highly entertaining book. How do these often tiny but indefatigable creatures do it? Gilbert Waldbauer pursues this question from hot springs and Himalayan slopes to roadsides and forests, scrutinizing insect life in its many manifestations.
- Hardcover 1996 / Paperback 1998
- Islam and Ecology
- The articulation of an Islamic environmental ethic in contemporary terms is all the more urgent because Western-style conservation efforts do not fit all cultural and philosophical traditions. This volume outlines the Islamic view of the cosmic order and reviews the ways an Islamic world view can be interpreted, reassessed, and applied to such environmental problems as pollution and water scarcity.
- Paperback 2003 / Hardcover 2003
- Man and Nature
- George Perkins Marsh's Man and Nature was the first book to attack the American myth of the superabundance and the inexhaustibility of the earth. It was, as Lewis Mumford said, "the fountainhead of the conservation movement," and few books since have had such an influence on the way men view and use land.
- Hardcover 1965 / Paperback
- Manipulative Monkeys
- This book takes us into a Costa Rican forest teeming with simian drama, where since 1990 primatologists Perry and Manson have followed four generations of capuchins. The authors describe behavior as entertaining--and occasionally as alarming--as it is recognizable: competition and cooperation, jockeying for position and status, peaceful years under an alpha male devolving into bloody chaos, and complex traditions passed from one generation to the next. Interspersed with their observations are the authors' colorful tales of the challenges of tropical fieldwork.
- Hardcover 2008
- March of the Microbes
- Though we might not be able to see microbes firsthand, the consequences of their activities are readily apparent to our unaided senses. March of the Microbes shows us how to examine, study, and appreciate microbes in the manner of a birdwatcher, by making sightings of microbial activities and thereby identifying particular microbes as well as understanding what they do and how they do it. John Ingraham leaves us marveling at the power and persistence of microbes on our planet and gives credence to Louis Pasteur’s famous assertion that “microbes will have the last word.”
- Hardcover 2010
- Mean and Lowly Things
- In 2005 Jackson ventured into the remote swamp forests of the northern Congo to collect reptiles and amphibians. This book is Jackson’s unvarnished account of her research on the front lines of the global biodiversity crisis—coping with interminable delays in obtaining permits, learning to outrun advancing army ants, subsisting on a diet of Spam and manioc, and ultimately falling in love with the strangely beautiful flooded forest.
- Hardcover 2008
- Millions of Monarchs, Bunches of Beetles
- Insects that are the least bit social may gather in modest groups, like the dozen or so sawfly larvae feeding on a pine needle, or they may form huge masses, like a swarm of migratory locusts in Africa or a cloud of mayflies at the edge of a midwestern lake. Why these insects get together and what they get out of their associations are questions finely and fully considered in this learned and entertaining look at the group behavior and social lives of a wide array of bugs.
- Hardcover 2000 / Paperback 2001
- More than Kin and Less than Kind
- Sibling rivalry and intergenerational conflict are not limited to human beings. Among seals and piglets, storks and burying beetles, in bird nests and beehives, from apples to humans, family conflicts can be deadly serious, determining who will survive and who will perish. When offspring compete for scarce resources, parents sometime play favorites or even kill their young. Mock tells us what scientists have discovered about this disturbing side of family dynamics in the natural world.
- Hardcover 2004 / Paperback 2006
- Nature Wars
- Hardcover 1997 / Paperback 1999
- On Animals, I, Books 1-5
- Aelian's Characteristics of Animals is an appealing collection of facts and fables about the animal kingdom that invites the reader to ponder contrasts between human and animal behavior.
- Hardcover 1958
- On Animals, II, Books 6-11
- Hardcover
- On Animals, III, Books 12-17
- Hardcover
- On Zion's Mount
- On Zion’s Mount shows how, paradoxically, the Mormons created their homeland at the expense of the local Indians—and how they expressed their sense of belonging by investing Mt. Timpanogos with “Indian” meaning.
- Hardcover 2008
- The Orchids
- This lively examination of the structure, classification, evolution, and ecology of the Orchidaceae will appeal to anyone with an eye for beauty or a bent for natural history. It will provide professional biologists and amateur orchidists alike with a deeper understanding--and a thoroughly new classification--of this, the largest flowering family in the plant kingdom.
- Hardcover 1981 / Paperback 1990
- The Other Insect Societies
- In his exploration of insect societies that don't fit the eusocial schema, James T. Costa gives these interesting phenomena their due. He synthesizes the scattered literature about social phenomena across the arthropod phylum: beetles and bugs, caterpillars and cockroaches, mantids and membracids, sawflies and spiders. This wide-ranging tour takes a rich narrative approach that interweaves theory and data analysis with the behavior and ecology of these remarkable groups. This book is likely to inspire a new generation of naturalists to take a closer look.
- Hardcover 2006
- Parenting for Primates
- In this natural history of primate parenting, Smith compares parenting by nonhuman and human primates. In a narrative rich with vivid anecdotes derived from interviews with primatologists, from her own experience breeding cottontop tamarin monkeys for over thirty years, and from her clinical psychology practice, Smith describes the ways that primates care for their offspring, from infancy through young adulthood.
- Hardcover 2006
- Plants and Empire
- In the eighteenth century, epic scientific voyages were sponsored by European imperial powers to explore the natural riches of the New World, and uncover the botanical secrets of its people. Bioprospectors brought back medicines, luxuries, and staples for their king and country. Plants and Empire explores the movement, triumph, and extinction of knowledge in the course of encounters between Europeans and the Caribbean populations.
- Hardcover 2004 / Paperback 2007
- Prairie Dogs
- Slobodchikoff and colleagues synthesize the results of their long-running study of Gunnison’s prairie dogs (Cynomys gunnisoni), one of the keystone species of the short-grass prairie ecosystem. By examining the complex factors behind prairie dog decline, we can begin to understand the problems inherent in our adversarial relationship with the natural world.
- Hardcover 2009
- Predator upon a Flower
- In the crab spider, Misumena vatia, Morse and his colleagues found an ideal species on which to test basic questions of lifetime fitness. Ecologists had previously identified variables shaping populations, but lacked the experimental data needed to comprehensively test individuals making foraging decisions. Predator upon a Flower recounts Morse's influential experimental discoveries, moving from individuals to communities to ecosystems, and suggests directions for future research in spider biology.
- Hardcover 2007
- Reading the Mountains of Home
- Small farms once occupied the heights that John Elder calls home, but now only a few cellar holes and tumbled stone walls remain among the dense stands of maple, beech, and hemlocks on these Vermont hills. Reading the Mountains of Home is a journey into these verdant reaches where in the last century humans tried their hand and where bear and moose now find shelter. As John Elder is our guide, so Robert Frost is Elder's companion, his great poem "Directive" seeing us through a landscape in which nature and literature, loss and recovery, are inextricably joined.
- Hardcover 1998 / Paperback 1999
- A Reef in Time
- Veron presents the geological history of the Great Barrier Reef, the biology of coral reef ecosystems, and a primer on what we know about climate change. He concludes that most coral reefs will be dead from mass bleaching and irreversible acidification within the coming century unless greenhouse gas emissions are curbed. If we don't have the political will to confront the plight of the world's reefs, he argues, current processes already in motion will become unstoppable, bringing on a mass extinction the world has not seen for 65 million years.
- Hardcover 2008 / Paperback 2009
- Reel Nature
- Like the museum and the zoo, nature films seek to recreate the experience of unspoiled nature while appealing to a popular audience, through a blend of scientific research and commercial promotion, education and entertainment, authenticity and artifice. In the first major analysis of American nature films in the twentieth century, Gregg Mitman shows how our cultural values, scientific needs, and new technologies produced the images that have shaped our contemporary view of wildlife.
- Hardcover 1999
- The Sand Wasps
- Howard Evans was a brilliant ethologist and systematist, describing over 900 species in over a dozen entomology and natural history books. Upon his death in 2002, he left behind an unfinished manuscript, intended as an update of his classic 1966 work, The Comparative Ethology and Evolution of the Sand Wasps. O'Neill, Evans's former student and coauthor, has completed and enlarged this work into a tribe-by-tribe, species-by-species review of Bembicinae studies from the last four decades.
- Hardcover 2007
- Secret Weapons
- Part handbook, part field guide, part photo album, Secret Weapons, the follow-up to the award-winning For Love of Insects, chronicles the diverse and often astonishing defensive strategies that have allowed insects, spiders, scorpions, and other many-legged creatures not just to survive, but to thrive.
- Hardcover 2005 / Paperback 2007
- Sex and Friendship in Baboons
- When it first appeared in the mid-1980s, this book transcended the traditional ethological focus on sexual interactions by analyzing male-female relationships outside the context of mating in a troop of wild baboons. Barbara Smuts used long-term friendships between males and females, documented over a two-year period, to show how social interactions between members of friendly pairs differed from those of other troop mates. Her findings, now enhanced with data from another fifteen years of field studies, suggest that the evolution of male reproductive strategies in baboons can only be understood by considering the relationship between sex and friendship: female baboons prefer to mate with males who have previously engaged in friendly interaction with them and their offspring. Smuts suggests that female choice may promote male investment in other species, and she explores the relevance of her findings for the evolution of male-female relationships in humans.
- Paperback 1999
- Sharks and Rays of Australia
The waters around Australia, the world’s smallest continent, are home to the greatest diversity of sharks and rays on Earth. Fully 100 of these sea creatures (along with their little-known relatives, the chimaerids) have been named or described since the first edition of this book—the biggest revision of the Class Chondrichthyes since the time of Linneaus. This second edition of Sharks and Rays of Australia brings more than 300 of these species to life in newly commissioned, full-color illustrations.
- Hardcover 2009
- The Smaller Majority
- This large-format volume of color photographs takes readers on a magnificent visual journey into the remote world of small tropical organisms critical to biodiversity. A unique introduction to the marvelous variety of the overlooked life under our feet, Naskrecki's book returns us to a child's sense of wonder with a fully informed, deeply felt understanding of the importance of the world's smaller, teeming life.
- Hardcover 2005 / Paperback 2007
- The Social Behavior of the Bees
- Hardcover 1974
- The Social Biology of Ropalidia marginata
- In this book, the biologist Raghavendra Gadagkar focuses on the single species he has worked on throughout his career. His years of study have led him to believe that ecological, physiological, and demographic factors can be more important than genetic relatedness in the selection for or against social traits.
- Hardcover 2001
- The Song of the Earth
As we enter a new millennium ruled by technology, will poetry still matter? The Song of the Earth answers eloquently in the affirmative. A book about our growing alienation from nature, it is also a brilliant meditation on the capacity of the writer to bring us back to earth, our home.
In the first ecological reading of English literature, Jonathan Bate traces the distinctions among "nature," "culture," and "environment" and shows how their meanings have changed since their appearance in the literature of the eighteenth century.
- Hardcover 2000 / Paperback 2002
- Thoreau
- Hildebidle sees Thoreau as representative of a long-standing American tendency simultaneously to reject and to use the past, and shows how, as naturalist, he brought together science and literary aims. This gracefully written analysis of Thoreau's thinking and style will well serve all readers of Thoreau and those interested in natural history as a genre.
- Hardcover 1983
- Tree of Origin
- Nine of the world's top primate experts compose the most extensive picture to date of what the behavior of monkeys and apes can tell us about our own evolution as a species.
- Hardcover 2001 / Paperback 2002
- The Urban Whale
- In 1980 a group of scientists censusing marine mammals in the Bay of Fundy was astonished by the sight of 25 right whales. Until that time, scientists believed the North Atlantic right whale was extinct or nearly so. The sightings electrified the research community, spurring a quarter century of exploration, which is documented here. The authors present current knowledge about the biology and plight of right whales and offer hope for the eventual salvation of this endangered whale.
- Hardcover 2007 / Paperback 2009
- Vibrational Communication in Animals
- In creatures as different as crickets and scorpions, mole rats and elephants, there exists an overlooked channel of communication: signals transmitted as vibrations through a solid substrate. In this book, Hill summarizes a generation of groundbreaking work by scientists around the world on this long understudied form of animal communication.
- Hardcover 2008
- A Walk around the Pond
- In his hallmark companionable style, Gilbert Waldbauer introduces us to the aquatic insects that have colonized ponds, lakes, streams, and rivers, especially those in North America. Along the way we learn about the diverse forms these arthropods take, as well as their remarkable modes of life. While learning about the evolution, natural history, and ecology of these insects, readers also discover more than a little about the scientists who study them.
- Hardcover 2006 / Paperback 2008
- The Western Experiment
- Paperback 1973
- What Good Are Bugs?
- This book, the first to catalogue ecologically important insects by their roles, gives us an enlightening look at how insects work in ecosystems--what they do, how they live, and how they make life as we know it possible. Waldbauer combines anecdotes from entomological history with insights into the intimate workings of the natural world, describing the intriguing and sometimes amazing behavior of these tiny creatures. As entertaining as it is informative, this charmingly illustrated volume captures the full sweep of insects' integral place in the web of life.
- Hardcover 2003 / Paperback 2004
- Writing for an Endangered World
- Emphasizing the influence of the physical environment on individual and collective perception, Writing for an Endangered World provides the theoretical underpinnings for an ecocriticism now reaching full power, and does so in remarkably clear ways. Focusing on nineteenth- and twentieth-century writers, it reimagines city and country as a single complex landscape.
- Hardcover 2001 / Paperback 2003