This is the only comprehensive guide to mammals in Central America and Southeast Mexico. Unlike most field guides, it covers smaller mammals in depth and also provides an extensive bibliography. In addition to detailed species accounts and range maps for all species, the book has 52 full-color plates. The 49 animal plates cover almost all the species in the region. 4 color maps are new to the second edition, detailing parks, elevations and biomes in the region.

Carnivores such as pumas, jaguars, and ocelots have roamed the neotropical forests of Central America for millennia. Enshrined in the myths of the ancient Maya, they still inspire awe in the region's current inhabitants, as well as in the ecotourists and researchers who come to experience Central America's diverse and increasingly endangered natural environment. This book is one of the first field guides dedicated to the carnivores of Central America. It describes the four indigenous families—wild cats, raccoons and their relatives, skunks and their relatives, and wild canids—and their individual species that live in the region. The authors introduce each species by recounting a first-person encounter with it, followed by concise explanations of its taxonomy, scientific name, English and Spanish common names, habitat, natural history, and conservation status. Range maps show the animal's past and current distribution, while Claudia Nocke's black-and-white drawings portray it visually. The concluding chapter looks to the carnivores' future, including threats posed by habitat destruction and other human activities, and describes some current conservation programs. Designed for citizens of and visitors to Central America, as well as specialists, this book offers an excellent introduction to a group of fascinating, threatened, and still imperfectly understood animals.

This is the first comprehensive field guide to the mammals of Central America, one of the most diverse and species-rich regions in the world. Generously illustrated with 48 full-color plates and many drawings, the book is designed for use both by amateur naturalists and professional biologists. The guide provides accounts for all mammals native to the land and surrounding waters of Central America and southeast Mexico. Detailed accounts include complete descriptions, measurements, range maps, and comparisons with similar species. The entire distribution, habitat, endangered status, and behaviors are also described, with sources of scientific references. For travelers to the region, a guide to the major parks and preserves is provided, with lists of the animals likely to found in each.

The story of Central America's role as an evolutionary link between continents.

Provides a dramatic account of the creation of the Caribbean Islands and Central America, the wildlife of these two regions, and the history of their early peoples.

Excerpt from The Land and Sea Mammals of Middle America and the West Indies, Vol. 4 In my previous volume, the Synopsis of the Mammals of North America and the Adjacent Seas, the field covered was from the northern boundary of Mexico to and including the Arctic Ocean. The present work is supposed to contain all the Mammals of the remaining portion of the North American continent and the contiguous seas, from the northern boundary of Mexico to the Province of Cauca, South America, including the coast islands, as well as those of the Bahamas and the West Indies whose fauna is not completely related to that of South America. In the general treatment of the named forms the method adopted in the previous work has been slightly elaborated, and brief statements of the habits of the animals contained in the various families, and sometimes in the genera, have been given, together with the English name for each species or race, and keys for genera, subgenera, species, and races whenever these were sufficiently numerous to make such analytical tables desirable. For a very large number of the species and races it is well understood that no English names exist, and these had to be manufactured for the occasion, and are practically of little assistance for the recognition of the different animals; but Latin names appear to be distasteful to a small number of the laity, and only those in the vernacular are satisfactory, and it is to aid these that this departure from the previous plan has been made. Numerous named species of many genera of Mammals have so close a resemblance to each other, both in their outward covering and cranial characters, that often it is very difficult to distinguish one from the other, and for them Keys are probably less satisfactory as a means of determining the various forms than for any other class of animals; but it seems that there is a desire for such aids, which to many have become necessary, and therefore an effort has been made to meet this need, which it is hoped will serve the purpose intended. The illustrations throughout the volume comprise not only various representations of the cranium of some selected species of nearly every genus and subgenus, as in the Synopsis, but in addition a figure is given of some species either of a family or genus, or possibly both, as the peculiarities of the animals seemed to require for a better comprehension of their appearance in life. To those unfamiliar with the diversified forms of the many mammals dwelling within the limits embraced in this volume, these figures may be of assistance, and enable them more easily to recognize the animals whose descriptions are given in the text. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.