Tracks, Scats and Other Traces: A Field Guide to Australian Mammals

Tracks, Scats and Other Traces: A Field Guide to Australian Mammals

This book, an enlarged and updated successor to Mammal Tracks and Signs: A Field guide for South-Eastern Australia (winner of the Whitley Award for the Best Field Guide in 1984), covers all Australian states and territories, contains hundreds of new illustrations and extensive new text, and is formatted for easy identification of the visible traces left by mammals in their passage. It is divided into four forms of classification: drawings of 'perfect' tracks matched with photographs of the same tracks in sand or mud; color illustrations depicting scats of 128 species of mammals--with a distribution maps and habitat information--along with pellets and scats of birds, reptiles and invertebrates; detailed descriptions and over 70 color photographs of the distinctive traces of mammals at shelters and feeding sites; and 40 full page plates of skulls, lower jaws, humeri and femurs covering the more commonly found species, plus a detailed guide covering all mammal groups. Naturalists are becoming increasingly aware of the value of the indirect methods of finding and identifying mammals. This handbook of detection will be an essential companion to be kept in the pocket, backpack or car for constant ready reference. "Informed coverage by an author who really knows what she is talking about. . . . For anyone interested in Australian mammals, this is an invaluable book; whether that interest is confined to enhancing the enjoyment of bushwalking or whether it is more professionally directed it will be a welcome text for naturalists and ecologists alike."-- Journal of Animal Ecology "Indispensable equipment for bushwalkers, naturalists, students, zoologists and other professionals, in fact, for anyone wanting a better understanding of Australia's unique mammal fauna." -- Ethology, Ecology & Evolution Barbara Triggs has lived in the bush, amongst the mammals she writes about, since 1972. An authority on the identification of mammalian traces, particularly hair and scats, she also studies the animals themselves and is the author of several natural history books, including The Wombat: Common Wombats in Australia .