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This fabulous new series introduces children by habitat to a variety of adorable animal babies. Each baby is introduced on one spread and on the next we find out who is its mother or father. In this way, children learn to identify animal babies and their parents. This simple, questioning approach helps young children engage with growth, change and families. Animal Babies in Grasslands shows seven young mammals living in this habitat, including lions, meerkats, elephants, prairie dogs, zebras, kangaroos and giraffes. From the close-knit prairie dog communities of North America to the big-eared elephants of Africa's scrubland, the delightful images and lively text will engage and delight young children. ... Read more

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Until now, there has not been any work that systematically presents the subject of acoustic fish reconnaissance, details all major aspects of applying acoustic equipment in commercial fish reconnaissance, and offers sufficient analysis of the effectiveness of fish-finding techniques. Acoustic Fish Reconnaissance responds to this need by providing the first overview of the theoretical and practical aspects of acoustic search, detection, interpretation, and population estimation for commercial benefit.

This book pays particular attention to the theory and practice of accounting surveys for quantitative estimation of biological resources and fishing conditions in traditional fishing areas. It also analyzes various applications of acoustic technique, based upon the authors' extensive investigations. The text includes the results of the applicability of fish-finding instruments, and offers recommendations on the development of improved acoustic techniques for commercial fleets. ... Read more

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When the first platypus specimen reached England from Australia in 1799, the scientific community claimed that it was a hoax. On closer investigation, dubious European naturalists eventually declared it to be real, though in an age obsessed with classification, the category-defying platypus sparked heated debates across Europe for a century. In Platypus, Ann Moyal provides a unique biography of one of the world's most famously strange creatures and tells the incredible story of how it became the focus of the great scientific debates of the nineteenth century. Eloquent and concise, Platypus uncovers the earliest theories and latest discoveries about this delightfully odd member of the animal kingdom.

Scientists continue to study the platypus, Moyal writes in closing, for its remarkable traits, including a seeming sixth sense that helps it locate its prey in the underwater darkness. Her graceful book sheds new light on the history of biology and ought to earn Ornithorhynchus anatinus many new admirers. --Gregory McNamee ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Breezy, light work of natural history
This is a little gem of a book. The platypus frustrated naturalists' taxonomic efforts and inspired some creative speculation about how exactly an animal that looks like a mammal might lay an egg like a bird. The scientific study of the platypus inspired heated debates, international posturing, and a surprising amount of awkwardly rhyming poetry. To be fair, this is not a weighty work and it tells more the story of European fascination with the animal than the biology and behavior of the animal itself.

Still, this is a charming work of natural history and runs as a nice tangent to the broader fields of the history of science and evolutionary biology. It isn't for everyone, but it is a breezy, fun work of popular science for readers interested in the subject.

A hsitory as interesting as the animal
Ann Moyal's "Platypus" is really two stories in one.As the tital suggests one of those stories is the history of the scientific struggle to understand an animal originally thought to be a chimaera and hoax.The second story is that of the people, preconceptions, and politics surrounding the science of natural history in the decades preceding and immediately following the Darwinian revolution of scientific thought.Moyal, through the narrow lens of a platypus-centralized story tells of the struggles, missteps and transformation of western science from franco/clerical to anglo-colonial/secular domination, and finally to the global excersise it has become today.It is fascinating that many of the greatest names in 18th and 19th century science (Cuvier, Meckel, Home, Geoffrey St-Hilaire, Owen, Darwin) all studied to some degree the anatomy and biology of the platypus!

The difficulties in studying the platypus are recreated in the pattern and pace of Moyal's prose.The overall progression of the book is temporal, but the chapters focus on the individuals and many of the chapters begin by backtracking in time to follow the story of another player in the story.This allows Moyal to explore each portion of the story she is telling as a series of mini-biographies, but requires diligence on the part of the reader to keep maintain an orderly timeline.

What was even more suprising is the size of the book, 15 chapters covering 205 pages (in an 5 in. X 8 in. format) with glossary (incomplete, but good for non-scientists), references, and index bringing the total to 226 pages.Out of the box my first impression was that is was too short.However, by the end of the book I felt satisfied that Moyal had adequetly, though not exhaustively, recounted the history of the study of the playpus and illuminated the position of this enigmatic creature as a focal point (one of many to be sure) of contention and controversy during a crucial period in the maturation of biological science.

A mediocre book about an extraordinary animal
This book is the story of a fascinating creature and those who studied it. Unfortunately, it was a letdown; the author's style is wordy and repetitive and the book is inflated with paragraphs and even chapters that could and should have been deleted. The entire story could have easily been told more concisely in the form of a magazine article. But then, the author wouldn't have had a book, would she? I am starting to think that these writers, who otherwise don't have much to say, stuff their manuscripts with minimally related material so as to have as many pages as they can. Do they get paid by the number of pages they write, or what?

WOW!
This book was an amazing story of how one small creature stumped a bunch of stuffy scientists. It really taught me about the platypus, and amused me at the same time. Kudos to the author.

Beautiful scholarly treatise.
Ann Moyal's portrait of the evolution of science with the Platypus as the centrefold was richly rewarding. The detail is a blessing as is the easy description of scientific terminology. I probably learnt as much about science as I did about the platypus. Complaints ? I don't read fiction so I love this stuff and it was too short. C'mon Ann, what's next ?***** ... Read more

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Dear Friend,

Beekeeping can be a fascinating hobby or you can turn it into a lucrative business. The choice is yours. You need to know some basics to help you get started. The equipment needed to be a beekeeper. Where can you find the equipment you need? The best location for the hives. You can't just put bees in any spot. What needs to be considered when picking the location for your bees?

The best place to get your bees. How do bees come in a package? Or do you have to catch your own? What are the challenges of beekeeping? What are the special needs of the bee that will ensure a good honey crop? Will there be a return on my investment into beekeeping? You want to learn to be a beekeeper. You want to master the art of making honey. It is important to have the correct information needed to start your new hobby. Without information we would all be floundering in the dark.

Knowing where and how to start will prevent you from making costly mistakes. Where do you find the information you need to get started in beekeeping? When you do find the information, there are 10 different books to read?

With the Beginner's Beekeeping Bible you can learn to become a beekeeper. It will teach you the things you need to know about beekeeping. How much do you know about bees? What they eat? How about what makes them sting?

Do bees get sick? Why is the queen different? Answers to these questions and many more are included. There is plenty of information on bees in this book.

With this book you could turn your hobby into a business. There are many products made using the honey and the wax that bees produce. The amount of time you spend on the bees only depends on you and the needs of the bees at the time. Bees need to be checked on periodically. Some times more than others and you will learn when those times are.

Here is What You Will Learn Inside This Guide:

How to Get Started
Acquiring Bees
Clothes and Equipment Needed
Using Pollen Substitutes
Using Nectar Substitutes
Queen Bee Management
Raising Queen Bees
How to Handle Bees
Raising Bees in Suburban Areas

As you can see this book has much information to offer the bee enthusiasts. The book will tell the methods to use to handle the bees. The way the bees are handled can mean the difference between a sting and no sting at all. Where else could you find so much information in one location?

The information in this book range from how to get started to how to process honey. This book compiles a wide range of subjects with information needed by the beginning beekeeper. It covers how to get started as how to care for them. The diseases and pests to protect them from. It also covers how to breed queen bees and how to process honey, as well as the way to present honey.

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Dear Readers:

We are dedicated to providing our customers with cutting edge information with the latest and most popular ebooks & hot topics at very affordable prices. Our mission is to create positive change in your life. We carry hundreds of unique titles including "Literary Classics" under many categories for your convenience. Please click on the name "Manuel Ortiz Braschi" at the top of the page, next to the title, or write "Manuel Ortiz Braschi" at the search box and you will be taken to our main page in Amazon, where you will be able to check all the interesting, unique and informative titles that we carry at Amazon Kindle. ... Read more

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Exquisite artwork and lyrical text combine in this striking and elegant picture book on Arctic wildlife from naturalists and children's book veterans, writer Jonathan London and artist Jon Van Zyle. ... Read more

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The reduction of the Earth’s biological diversity has emerged as a public policy issue in the last several years. Growing awareness of this planetary problem has prompted increased study of the subject and has led to calls to increase public and private initiatives to address the problem. This interest in maintaining biological diversity has created a common ground for a variety of groups concerned with implications of a reduction or ultimate loss of the planet’s genetic, species, or ecosystem diversity.

One major concern is that loss of plant, animal, and microbial resources may impair future options to develop new important products and processes in agriculture, medicine, and industry. Concerns also exist that loss of diversity undermines the potential of populations and species to respond or adapt to changing environmental conditions. Because humans ultimately depend on environmental support functions, special caution should be taken to ensure that diversity losses do not disrupt these functions. Finally, esthetic and ethical motivation to avoid the irreversible loss of unique life forms has played an increasingly major role in promoting public and private programs to conserve particular species or habitats.

The broad implications of loss of biological diversity are also reflected in the different concerns and jurisdictions of congressional committees that requestedor supported this study. Requestors include the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology; Senate Committee on Foreign Relations; and Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. The House Committee on Foreign Affairs; House Committee on Agriculture; and House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries endorsed the requested study.

The task presented to OTA by these committees was to clarify for Congress the nature of the problems of reduction of the Earth’s biological diversity and to set forth a range of policy options available to Congress to respond to various concerns. The principal aim of this report is to identify and assess the technological and institutional opportunities and constraints to maintaining biological diversity in the United States and worldwide. ... Read more

Product Description
A perfect marriage: bugs, kids, and Fandex. Meet South America's Hercules Beetle, as big as a dollar bill and the strongest creature on earth, able to lift 850 times its body weight. (That's like a 100-pound person lifting four school buses!) The Black Widow Spider, whose females, contrary to reputation, rarely eat their mates. And the wonderfully bizarre Walking Stick, sometimes called "Frankenstick" for its ability to reattach its own severed head. Plus Treehoppers and Leafhoppers, centipedes and millipedes, stealthy Assassin Bugs, and twelve thousand varieties of ant.

Bringing the world's most fascinating creepy-crawlies—insects, spiders, scorpions, and other Arthropoda—to your fingertips, Bugs combines fascinating information about 48 creatures with die-cut, full-color photographs that reveal their subjects' shimmery wings, iridescent shells, vivid hues, and bold shapes in astonishing detail. Every card includes a detailed description, habitat and scientific name, lore, field notes on lifecycle, identifiers, and size, as well as sidebars covering topics such as the fly's ability to walk upside-down and how bees make honey.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

For budding entymologists everywhere
"The Bugs Fandex"
(Workman Publishing)
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This is a fun, graphically striking educational tool, a "fandex" in which attached pages fan out from a central spoke, and each page gives information about a specific insect or bug.It's a nice educational item -- each page has information on the front and back, and while the text is densely packed, it is well balanced with the graphic design, in which the legs and antennae of various species poke out from the upper edges.As a field guide it may have limited uses, though... Many of the bugs are fairly common -- praying mantis, ants, etc. -- while others, which are chosen for their wow factor (like the scarab beetle) are unlikely to be found on your average field trip. Also, the uneven, unusual, multiple edges of the unique pages can make it difficult to put the pages back in place once the fan has been unfurled.This is certainly true for smaller children, so it might be frustrating if used out in the real world. For at-home use, though, this can be a lot of fun. The visual element is quite strong, and the information behind it seems pretty solid. (Joe Sixpack, ReadThatAgain children's book reviews) ... Read more

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Kids will go wild for the giant posters, ferocious 3-D projects, high quality art materials, and amazing information about dinosaurs in this new Deluxe Start Exploring Kit. Our fact-filled Start Exploring coloring books are an interactive way to learn about diverse topics. Now, expanding on that successful idea, we’ve created a kit that includes a 16-page, full-color Paleontologist’s handbook, 10 posters of different sizes, ready-to-assemble 3-D dinosaur, trading cards, dinosaur mobile, colorable stickers, easy-to-make puzzle, full-color art technique booklet, 5 watercolor pencils, paintbrush, eraser, and pencil sharpener. No other poster coloring kits offer such a wide variety of engaging, educational activities. The activities vary in complexity so that kids can practice their art techniques and gain confidence before tackling the largest posters. ... Read more

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Based on modern limnology and environmental research,synthesesof the composition, functions and production of pelagic ecosystems arebeing provided in the Great Lakes of Africa. Special attention isgiven to Lake Tanganyika and recent research activities. New findingson relationships between lake hydrophysics, climatic patterns andbiological productivity are presented. The roles of organic mattersand microbes are discussed. The implications of environmental and fishery research on regionalfisheries management are presented, together with the outcomes of therecent major research projects in lakes Tanganyika and Malawi,particularly in practical fisheries development. ... Read more

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It was the month of Jaishta (May-June) in Bengal, and the earth languished under the scorching rays of the sun and sent up a voiceless prayer to the Rain God to come soon and refresh the fields and jungles with the welcome barsat (rainy season).
... Read more

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Political leaders, scholars, foreign policy and development experts, and human rights activists are among those featured in this anthology that examines important contemporary issues facing Africa. (20020801) ... Read more

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Is life on earth facing a new period of mass extinction like those that have destroyed billions of species in the past? In "Dying Planet", science writer Jon Erickson tells the story of history's great episodes of plant and animal extinction and speculates on how modern man's continued destruction of large ecosystems around the globe could have a similar impact on life in the centuries to come. After reviewing prevailing theories on the creation and evolution of life, Erickson explores the possible causes and tangible effects of mass extinctions form the Precambrian period to the disappearance of Cro-Magnon man. Readers learn how such phenomena as volcanic eruptions, continental drift, magnetic reversals, climatic change, and comet impacts might have lead to the decline of many species. Finally, Erickson discusses today's ecological problems and how overpopulation, pollution, deforestation and overcultivation are responsible for the loss of more than 100 species every day - indicating that at least half the planet's known species will vanish in the next 50 years. ... Read more

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The elasmobranch fishes include the living sharks, skates andrays that are important members of nearly all marine ecosystems. Theirlarge size, secretive behavior, and wide-ranging habits make themdifficult to observe in the field or to maintain in captivity.Consequently, little is known about their natural behavior and how itis mediated by their sensory systems. This volume is dedicated to thescientific contributions and memory of Donald Nelson, a pioneer in thestudy of shark behavior, sensory biology, and remote instrumentation.The two opening papers review Don Nelson's unique scientificaccomplishments and provide insight into his strong bias towards studyof animals in the field. These are followed by 14 scientific papers onelasmobranch behavior, sensory biology, and current monitoringtechnologies. The papers on elasmobranch sensory biology and behavioraddress questions on hearing, the lateral line, electroreception, thebrain, orientation behavior, chemical irritants, feeding, andreproduction. The latter section of the volume presents papers onconventional tagging techniques, ultrasonic telemetry, physiologicaltelemetry, remote monitoring techniques, archival tagging andsatellite tagging. The intent of this volume is to familiarize bothnew and established scientists with the sensory biology and behaviorof sharks and rays, and to encourage further behavioral research onthese animals in their natural environment. ... Read more

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In the classic Adaptive Management of RenewableResources, first published in 1986, Carl Walters challenges thetraditional approach to dealing with uncertainty in the management ofsuch renewable resources as fish and wildlife. He argued thatscientific understanding will come from the experience of managementas an ongoing, adaptive and experimental process, rather than throughbasic research or the development of ecological theory.

In the opening chapters Walters reviews approaches to formulating management objectives as well as models for understanding how policy choices affect the attainment of these objectives. In subsequent chapters he presents various statistical methods for understanding the dynamics of uncertainty in managed fish and wildlife populations and for seeking optimum harvest policies in the face of uncertainty. Walters concludes with a look at the prospects for adaptive management of complex systems, emphasizing such human factors involved in decision making as risk aversion and conflicting objectives as well as biophysical factors. Throughout the text he uses dynamic models and Bayesian statistical theory as tolls for understanding the behavior of managed systems and he illustrates these tools with simple graphs and plots of data from representative cases.

This text/reference will serve researchers, graduate students and resource managers who formulate harvest policies and study the dynamics of harvest populations as well as analysts (modelers, statisticians and stock management experts) who are concerned with the practice of policy design. ... Read more

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Tropical habitats may contain more than a third of the world´s plant and animal species; Costa Rica alone is home to one of the highest levels of biodiversity per unit area in the world, and stands at center stage in worldwide conservation efforts. Within such regions, the use of state-of-the-art digital mapping technologies -sophisticated techniques that are relatively inexpensive and accessible -represents the future of conservation planning and policy. These methods, which employ satellites to obtain visual data on landscapes, allow environmental scientists to monitor encroachment on indigenous territories, trace park boundaries through unmarked wilderness, and identify wildlife habitats in regions where humans have limited access.
Focusing on the rich biodiversity of Costa Rica, the contributors demonstrate the use of geographic information systems (GIS) to enhance conservation efforts. They give an overview of the spatial nature of conservation and management and the current status of digital mapping in Costa Rica; a review of the basic principles behind digital mapping technologies; a series of case studies using these technologies at a variety of scales and for a range of conservation and management activities; and the results of the Costa Rican gap analysis project. GIS Methodologies for Developing Conservation Strategies provides powerful tools for those involved in decision-making about the natural environment, particularly in developing nations like Costa Rica where such technologies have not yet been widely adopted. For specialists in such areas as geography, conservation biology, and wildlife and natural resource management, the combination of conceptual background and case examples make the book a crucial addition to the literature. ... Read more

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An analysis of the rhetoric of science in the evolution of American ornithological discourse. It covers: the emergence of American ornithological discourse; discourse models for natural history and experimental science; diachronic changes; and more. ... Read more

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This title in the "Eyewitness Guides" series covers the Arctic and Antarctic. It explains how plants, animals and people survive in the cold, what they find to eat, and how they live. Discover how to build an igloo, how husky dogs pull a sled, and follow in the footsteps of the heroic explorers. ... Read more