BOOKS
Something for animal lovers and young ones
This field guide covers just about anything you could come across in nature, from the tiniest flea to the biggest old yellow-wood tree. There are 11 chapters, each covering something completely different: lower invertebrates, spiders and other arachnids, insects, freshwater fishes, frogs, reptiles, birds, mammals, grasses, sedges, ferns and fungi, wild flowers and trees. If you take this field guide on your next trip, there’s probably no plant or animal in Southern Africa that will leave you scratching your head as you try to figure out what it is. Copies of Wildlife of Southern Africa have been travelling in many a Southern African nature enthusiast’s cubby or backpack for years. The first edition appeared on shelves in 1997, with revised editions every few years ever since. A lot changes in 20 years and the latest edition has been fully updated to include any animal and plant name changes. It now also includes maps on topics like rainfall areas, topography and biomes, as well as where you’ll find each species. The guide gives a description and accurate, full-colour illustration of more than 2000 plants and animals and every chapter is written by an expert in that specific field. The descriptions aren’t very long, since each page contains about six plants or animals. But with the neat illustration next to the words, you know exactly what each specimen looks like, what sound it makes (okay, not the snails or trees), what colour the plant or animal is, how it behaves and its habitat. The guide also indicates which insects and snakes are dangerous, a handy little piece of info if you find something slithering around your camp which you can’t identify off the top of your head. Furthermore, every chapter is neatly colour coded for quick and easy reference.