Product Description

From space, Africa is a shattered land, textured by burning sands, seas of grass and steaming forests. It is scarred by mountains and bejewelled by great lakes and rivers. This ancient continent is also alive with some of the greatest wildlife on Earth. The book covers the fragmented areas of Africa: the jungle, the mountains, the savannah, the rivers and lakes, the coasts, and the deserts. It shows how a once stable continent has been fragmented and how this process has catalyzed the evolution of some remarkable animals and plants. In the savannah, carnivorous ants consume as much meat as lions, while in the jungle, where light barely penetrates the lef canopy, there are diminutuve forms of familiar animals - pygmy chimpanzees, forest elephants and dwarf hippos.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #500777 in Books
• Published on: 2001-11-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
We are all Africans at heart, our ancestors originated from there just 100,000 years ago and Wild Africa is the natural history of our African Eden, the only continent to have preserved a substantial part of its wildlife, at least until recently. From weird molerats to magnificent mountains and huge crocodiles with a taste for wildebeest, Wild Africa is a superbly illustrated celebration of the continent's natural history and accompanies a BBC TV series of the same name. Each of Africa's major environments is treated and authored separately by the expert team of writers, all of whom work with the BBC's world famous Natural History Unit. From the immensely long coastline with its variety from coral reefs to deltas and rocky shores with their abundant marine life, the reader is taken on a spectacular safari through mountains, lakes and rivers, across deserts with their highly specialised inhabitants through jungles out onto the savannah grasslands with the more familiar large grazers and lurking predators so beloved by film makers.

Altogether Wild Africa is a wonderful introduction to the wildlife treasures of the great continent for the general reader and school children. Wild Africa follows the now well tried and tested BBC format for their natural history books with excellent colour photos on virtually every page plus some maps and diagrams. The text is well written and clearly structured, packed with information and stories. The accompanying topic links within the text help the reader cross refer to associated themes and information. An index, bibliography and list of wildlife organisations with their Web sites make Wild Africa an excellent addition to any library. --Douglas Palmer

Review
From space, Africa is a shattered land, textured by burning sands, seas of grass and steaming forests. It is scarred by mountains and bejewelled by great lakes and rivers. Raw and beautiful, this ancient continent is alive with the greatest collection of wildlife on earth. This stunning volume shows how a once-stable continent has been fragmented into these six beautiful realms, and how this process has catalysed the evolution of some remarkable animals and plants in each one. Morris and his co-authors take the reader into the heart of this fabulous landscape, introducing every habitat through a dedicated chapter that reveals how the resident wildlife has adapted to thrive in its unique natural environment. Through beautifully detailed images and lively, authoritative text, Wild Africa immerses the reader in the natural history of this spectacular continent.

Customer Reviews

A Great book for a magical continent
This book is awesome. From front cover to back cover the stunning photographs captivated me. It accompanys the show very well missing almost nothing and bringing memories from the programme into your immagination.
Although it was difficult to follow in the steps from ' The Blue planet' it is almost as good.

You can almost never put the book down. My little cousins loved the photos. It makes me want to jump onto a plnae a fly to Africa!

Great Buy
This is simply a great book packd with beautiful pictures and the information to go with it. A perfect gift for any wild animal lover!

Everything you need to know.
This book is amazing it has nearly everything you want to no about animals, its great for me because i want to be a zookeeper or a gamekeeper in Africa when im older.
The pictures are like, Wow!!
This book is really good, ive got loads of animal books and this is the best one so far.