Field guides for Southern African wildlife: Mammals

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John54
Posts: 27
Joined: Mon Sep 13, 2010 7:48 pm

Field guides for Southern African wildlife: Mammals

Post by John54 » Sun Oct 03, 2010 12:34 am

Some personal advice on which wildlife guides to take along on your selfdrive safari: Part 2, mammals.

Lots of average to good guides to choose from, but in my opinion there is only one that matters: "The Kingdon field guide to African mammals" by Jonathan Kingdon. This is the most complete guide. All the African landbased mammals are covered in every detail you might want to know, such as recognition, habitat, behaviour, food, status and more. It comes with a wealth of information, excellent lively illustrations and distribution maps. Even with 470 pages it still fits in your pocket.

The next best guide is probably the "light" version of this guide: "The Kingdon pocket guide to African Animals". It is a condensed version of the standard book. You will loose around 200 pages of the extensive information, mostly on bats & small rodents. Still every mammal genus is described and represented. Even with these limitations this pocket version is probably the next best field guide. It is also, or shortly will be available as software for your Iphone, Ipad, blackberry and Android based phones, tablets and such. Check out http://www.mydigitalearth.com/ for releases & available versions.
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Kingdon pocket guide.jpg
kingdon eguide.jpg
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