Sounds of Neotropical Rainforest Mammals : An Audio Field Guide

Rating:
Summary: Remarkable and ambitious publication
Review: Produced by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology as a companion to a field guide, this remarkable two-CD set is unlike any other nature guide yet published. It is an audio guide to mammals, and only mammals, of the rainforests of the New World.

As the hot spots of the world's bioversity, rainforests have gotten lots of attention from naturalists and adventurous eco-tourists, who want to explore these green worlds for themselves. There have been countless field guides (both printed and audio) to birds in various parts of the New World tropics, but this audio guide exposes the voices of rainforest mammals, many of them retiring and rarely seen in the thick foliage, for study and appreciation.

The first disc is brief (about 40 minutes), but sound recordings of a lot of these mammals are not easily obtained. Over 50 species give voice to their unique sounds. Opossums snort and grunt, jaguars make a sound like someone sawing on a log, tapirs whistle like birds. There is even a recording of a river dolphin spouting, the sudden explosive noise almost out of place among the other jungle sounds.

The second disc, longer in length, features the most vocal of the rainforest mammals, the primates. Some of these produce sounds that could easily be mistaken for the sounds of other creatures. For example, some of the smaller monkeys, like the tamarins, produces squeaks and chitters that are surprisingly birdlike. The night monkey, calling after dark when it would probably never be seen, hoots exactly like an owl. The loudest of the rainforest monkeys, the howlers, produce roars of such intensity that they will literally frighten anyone who visits the rainforest but does not know that these are the sounds of harmless vegetarians.

"Sounds of Neotropical Rainforest Mammals" is off the beaten track, to be sure, but if you are traveling to the tropics anytime soon, I strongly recommend it. Even if you're not, I recommend it anyway. You haven't really lived until you've startled your neighbors with the loud, cackling chorus of the dusky titi monkey.

Rating:
Summary: Remarkable and ambitious publication
Review: Produced by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology as a companion to a field guide, this remarkable two-CD set is unlike any other nature guide yet published. It is an audio guide to mammals, and only mammals, of the rainforests of the New World.

As the hot spots of the world's bioversity, rainforests have gotten lots of attention from naturalists and adventurous eco-tourists, who want to explore these green worlds for themselves. There have been countless field guides (both printed and audio) to birds in various parts of the New World tropics, but this audio guide exposes the voices of rainforest mammals, many of them retiring and rarely seen in the thick foliage, for study and appreciation.

The first disc is brief (about 40 minutes), but sound recordings of a lot of these mammals are not easily obtained. Over 50 species give voice to their unique sounds. Opossums snort and grunt, jaguars make a sound like someone sawing on a log, tapirs whistle like birds. There is even a recording of a river dolphin spouting, the sudden explosive noise almost out of place among the other jungle sounds.

The second disc, longer in length, features the most vocal of the rainforest mammals, the primates. Some of these produce sounds that could easily be mistaken for the sounds of other creatures. For example, some of the smaller monkeys, like the tamarins, produces squeaks and chitters that are surprisingly birdlike. The night monkey, calling after dark when it would probably never be seen, hoots exactly like an owl. The loudest of the rainforest monkeys, the howlers, produce roars of such intensity that they will literally frighten anyone who visits the rainforest but does not know that these are the sounds of harmless vegetarians.

"Sounds of Neotropical Rainforest Mammals" is off the beaten track, to be sure, but if you are traveling to the tropics anytime soon, I strongly recommend it. Even if you're not, I recommend it anyway. You haven't really lived until you've startled your neighbors with the loud, cackling chorus of the dusky titi monkey.