Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #275007 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Synopsis
This is the first comprehensive English-language field guide to the wildlife of Chile and its territories - Chilean Antarctica, Easter Island, Juan Fernandez, and San Felix y San Ambrosio. From bats to butterflies, lizards to llamas, and ferns to flamingos, "A Wildlife Guide to Chile" covers the country's common plants and animals. The color plates depict species in their natural environments with unmatched vividness and realism. The combination of detailed illustrations and engaging, succinct, and authoritative text make field identification quick, easy, and accurate. Maps, charts, and diagrams provide information about landforms, submarine topography, marine environment, climate, vegetation zones, and the best places to view wildlife.This is an essential guide to Chile's remarkable biodiversity. The only comprehensive English-language guide to Chile's common flora and fauna, this title is the first guide to cover Chile and its territories - Chilean Antarctica, Easter Island, Juan Fernandez, and San Felix & San Ambrosio. 120 full-color plates allow quick identification of more than 800 species. Accompanying text describes species size, shape, color, habitat, and range.

Descriptions list size, distribution, and English, Spanish, and scientific names. This book includes information on the best spots to view wildlife, including major national parks Compact and is lightweight - a perfect field guide.

Customer Reviews

A welcome addition to the South American naturalist's library
The South American countries are characterised by a very high natural diversity coupled with a relative scarcity of biologists and field naturalists, the result of which is a paucity of popular literature which would enable the curious resident or visitor to easily identify what he/she encounters. Admittedly, in recent years, the lack of reliable field guides is being successfully addressed for at least one group, and there are now excellent - if heavy! - guides to the birds of almost all of the countries of highest diversity. Even so, field guides to any other groups remain a rarity. So it was a very pleasant surprise to come across Sharon Chester's new book, particularly because it aims not just to identify the butterflies or the reptiles, but to provide a broad overview of the entire natural history of Chile and its territories. As far as I know, there is nothing similar available for mainland Chile and since this guide also covers the all Chilean territories, it will be of interest for visitors to the Antarctic too.

The book is very well organised and carefully laid out: it must have been a real labour of love for its creator, who wrote the nearly 400 pages of small text and produced the photographically derived illustrations. In scope it is a general guide to the natural history of Chile, something along the lines of the Ecotravellers' Wildlife Guide series but, to my taste, better put together. After an overview of Chile's natural environments and ecology, subsequent chapters tackle marine organisms, flora, lepidoptera, reptiles and amphibians, birds (by far the largest section, though it does not replace Jaramillo's excellent Birds of Chile (Princeton Field Guides)) and mammals, after which there is a short gazetteer on wildlife viewing sites. The text is concise and informative and the illustrations very lifelike. The book would fit easily into a coat pocket, so it could be used as a true field guide, but is more likely to be used to plan trip or as reference back at base camp.

Should the potential visitor to Chile, the Chilean Antarctic or any other territories buy this book? Definitely! The book will certainly make a Chilean trip more enjoyable for the birder and general naturalist - there is nothing else comparable. And if you need further convincing, at under $14, it has to be one of the bargain nature books of 2008.

Highly recommended!

Chris Sharpe, 17 September 2008. ISBN: 0691129762