Galapagos: Discovery On Darwin's Island

Rating:
Summary: fantastic and well illustrated book on Galapagos wildlife
Review: David W. Steadman, Steven Zousmer, and Lee M. Steadman have done an outstanding job on this book on Galapagos wildlife. The book is basically divided into two parts. The first part, amply illustrated by highly quality full color photographs, describes the overall geology, topography, climate, flora, and especially fauna of this important group of islands. Much of this stems from the fieldwork of David Steadman and his brother Lee. Truly fascinating, everything from paleonotological research in the islands, speciation of the island's famous finches, Charles Darwin's explorations and work in the islands, to conservation and more are addressed. Also found in part one are maps, both modern day and some early maps from when the island's were first being explored, as well some early scientific illustrations of the island's plants and animals.

Part two though to me is the main reason to buy this fine book, which contains the color plates by artist and scientist Lee M. Steadman. These excellent illustrations depict every resident species of bird from the islands as well as least one species of each major group of native reptiles and mammals. Even a few extinct species are illustrated. Accompanying each full page illustration of an animal in its native habitat is a full page description of the species, noting physical description in detail, ecological role, natural history notes, life habits, how the group got to the islands, possible relations to other species not only on other islands in the Galapagos but also on the mainland, and notes relating to conservation. The color plates are excellent, very true to life and quite beautiful, illustrating such species as the Galapagos Tortoise (of course!), the Marine Iguana, Red Bat, Galapagos Fur Seal, Galapagos Penguin, Dark-rumped Petrel, Flightless Cormorant, Lava Heron, and the San Cristobal Mockingbird. The famous finches of course are given several great pages of illustrations with several pages of text devoted to them.

This is a great buy, and it is a true shame that this book is out of print! I'll never understand why some books go out of print, this book is in my opinion a classic not only on the Galapagos but in the field of natural history in general, and should be reprinted again and again. I highly urged all of those interested in these wondrous isles to get Amazon to search for this book for you.