Average Customer Review: ( 6 customer reviews )
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
25 of 25 found the following review helpful:
Excellent Color Plates with a thorough, yet readable text Jun 29, 2002
By David Graham
A layman needs a good guide when on tour of a new territory, whether that be a museum, a literary genre, or a country's heritage. In David Pearson's and Les Beletsky's 485 page ECUADOR and its GALAPAGOS ISLANDS, they present a book that is as good a guide as a layman could hope for, not just for exploring Ecuador or its Galapagos Islands, but for getting to know much of the fauna of Amazonian Latin America. The text is professionally written, yet down to earth and not infrequently humorous. The famous entomologist J. Henri Fabre once wrote, "Others again have reproached me with my style, which has not the solemnity, nay, better, the dryness of the schools. They fear lest a page that is read without fatigue should not always be the expression of the truth. Were I to take their word for it, we are profound only on condition of being obscure." This approach to scientific writing - being informative without being pedantic - allows writers like Pearson and Beletsky to fill the reader's heart with wonder while still often bringing a smile to his/her face. With Ecuador being one of the most biologically diverse countries on earth, it is impossible to create a book that is both comprehensive and brief. The authors have gone for middle ground, covering the portion of Ecuadorian wildlife that is of interest and/or likely to be spotted by the ecotraveller to Ecuador. There are 96 color plates (with 5-6 animals illustrated on each one), several pages of color photographs, an excellent chapter - with maps - of Ecuador's National Parks and Bioreserves, a section on Ecuador's geography and habitats (e.g., Lowland Wet Forest, Mangrove and Coastal Vegetation) along with drawings illustrating several major plants in these regions, and 200 pages of animal descriptions under the headings 'Amphibians', 'Reptiles', 'Birds', 'Mammals', 'Insects & Other Arthropods', and 'Galapagos Wildlife'. As an Ecuadorian resident, I have found this guide to be an excellent aid to identifying and understanding the natural history of the country. The book was both informative and fun to read, and I can highly recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about this wonderful area of the world.
21 of 21 found the following review helpful:
Go go Galapagos! Jul 28, 2000
By Lydia
I have just returned from those Enchanted Isles and found Beletsky's guide omnipresent, dog-eared and tightly clutched in the sea-salted hands of many a visitor. I am surprised that the Sea Lions and Blue Footed Boobies did not have their own copies! This guide is a truly indispensible accessory for those fortunate enough to have visited those Islands of wonder and enchantment. It is also a great whetter of one's appetite! Other books have their strengths, but when push comes to shove, or in this case just going around..., one wants a thorough compliment to one's naturalist (to make all those notations when one gets back home, of course) and also a look into what is to come. Accurate and beautifully illustrated.
5 of 5 found the following review helpful:
Great for Ecotourist Aug 10, 2007
By M. Shick
"Mt.Pl Librarian"
This book was one used by my guide during a recent trip to the Ecuadorian
Selva. I purchased it on my return home and transfered my field notes to the pages with the appropriate birds and animals I had the pleasure to see. I have enjoyed reading the addition info the book provides and it will help preserve my experience for myself and others.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Perfect Wildlife Guide Jan 16, 2011
By comingmoon
This book was the perfect guide of most of the animals: birds, reptiles, mammals & amphibians you will see in the Galapagos. The photo ID Plates were fantastic and the descriptions were complete for range and habitat. I also really enjoyed the paragraphs on the Natural History of the species so that I not only knew what I was seeing but background on that animal. If you can only take one book with you this is the one!!!
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
A good guide to more than birds! Jul 14, 2008
By Margaret A. Cleary
I chose this book for my trip to Ecuador because it included non-birds, and I didn't know of a book that covered everything but birds, nor did I want to bring two separate guides. This book did include nearly all the birds, monkeys and other animals I saw in 25 days in several different ecosystems, though it could have been stronger in the area of frogs and invertebrates (spiders, ants, butterflies, snails...) and the segregation of Galapagos species into their own section was somewhat inaccurate, as several of them can also be seen on Isla de la Plata. (The jungle lodge I visited had several copies of this book on their shelves for visitor use, which I think can be considered an endorsement.) I came home perfectly satisfied with it, even though we had to rely on our naturalists for a few identifications.
I'll admit to having cut out most of the text section and left it at home to save on weight, taking along only the color plates and brief haitat descriptions. Fortunately, the color pages do include enough region and habitat information on each entry to help distinguish similar species. Now that I'm home, I'll put it back together and enjoy reading the text as a way of softening the blow of leaving Ecuador. I can't wait to go back and explore more, and I didn't even try to cover the Galapagos!
See all 6 customer reviews on Amazon.com
|
based on 6 reviews
