This illustrated checklist covers Madagascar, one of the world’s highest-priority Biodiversity Hotspots, and country renowned for its amazing fauna and flora and especially its very large number of extraordinary endemic species. Madagascar is also one of the world’s four major regions for primates, with 112 endemic species and subspecies of lemur. Given Madagascar’s unique biodiversity, and the relative ease with which it can be observed and enjoyed, it should be one of the world’s premier ecotourism destinations, and this book is intended to facilitate such tourism.
This book will equip residents and visitors to the region with an easy-to-use resource that will allow them to quickly learn about the 253 terrestrial and marine mammals that occur there. The most up-to-date reference on the region’s mammals, it has a description and illustration of every mammal species and subspecies found on Madagascar, and also includes the mammals of the nearby islands of the Comoros, the Seychelles, Réunion and Mauritius, which are also part of the Madagascar and Indian Ocean Islands Hotspot.
This book is part of the Lynx Illustrated Checklists collection, created from the vast wealth of data, illustrations and maps compiled for the Handbook of the Mammals of the World series, that have been distilled into useful and portable books for your visits to specific destinations.
- With an easy-to-use format that is very handy for the field, this new book enables visitors to see at a glance which species are present in the region, and gives pointers that will help towards their identification.
- Covering the 253 mammal species (219 terrestrial, 34 marine) occurring naturally in Madagascar, as well as 13 others restricted to the neighbouring islands.
- Texts for each species include common names in English and French; scientific names; conservation status according to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species; the most relevant details about habitats occupied; and brief descriptive notes.
- Each species account is accompanied by one or more illustrations and a distribution map.
- Two separate sections deal with the land mammals of the neighbouring islands and mammals introduced to the region by humans.
- Also included is a table of selected sites for observing mammals in Madagascar, together with a note of some of the highlight species for each site.
- To further stimulate mammal life-listing, a complete checklist is provided, where you can mark the species that you personally have seen in the wild.
