Yet another brilliant book from the Collins Field Guide Series, with over 1,000 illustrations that will help you identify some 230 species of British and European mammals, including pinnipeds (seals and kin) and cetaceans (dolphins, whales and kin).

The first part of the book is rather poor in content, compared to other Collins Field Guides, as it only includes information on how to use the book.

The main part of the book, however, contains some 64 color plates, depicting all mammals in Europe. The color drawings are really spectacular, portraying adults, different sexes if these are sufficiently different, as well as juveniles, if they resemble neither parent. They also include line drawings of skulls and other field signs, such as droppings and tracks, as well as scenes depicting characteristic dens, to facilitate detection of nocturnal animals.

Descriptive texts are lengthy, providing in depth information on each species, as well as a wealth of facts on habitat, habits, breeding, lifespan, measurements and general data on number of sightings, population numbers, etc. Texts are accompanied by line drawings and particularly useful distribution maps.

To avoid frequent repetitions in the species texts, many facts common to several different animals are placed in the introductions to mammalian orders.

Oddly enough, the book deals, inter alia, with marsupials and primates, respectively, two orders which one would hardly expect to encounter in Europe! Apparently, however, there's a localized population of Red-necked Wallabies in the UK (District of English Midlands and Loch Lomond, Scotland). And there's a naturalized population of Barbary Apes on the Rock of Gibraltar, which has originated from North African stock.

Contents:

• Preface
• How to Use this Book
• Marsupials
• Insectivores
• Chiroptera
• Primates
• Carnivores
• Pinnipeds
• Cetacea
• Artiodactyla
• Rodents
• Lagomorphs
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index

I believe that this is the only field guide you'll ever need to identify every wild mammal species you can reasonably expect to encounter in Europe. The only shortcoming, if you must find a fault with the book, is that it lacks a key and measurements of skulls and teeth, which are very important for distinguishing between species of small mammals.

The hard-cover book, which I own, consists of 312 pages, plus 64 color plates, making a grand total of 376 pages. It is a sturdy, well bound book and is holding up exceptionally well, however it has only seen light field use, as I have purchased it only recently. Highly recommended!

Click on the thumbnails below to view images of the cover and inside pages.

To order the book online, kindly follow this link to amazon.co.uk. Thanks again for looking and happy animal watching!

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