Since its foundation in 1860, the Oxford University Museum of Natural History's world-renowned collections have become a key centre for scientific study and its much-loved building an important icon for visitors from around the world.The museum now holds over seven million scientific specimens including five million insects, half a million fossil specimens and half a million zoological specimens. It also holds an extensive collection of archival material relating to important naturalists such as Charles Darwin, William Smith, William Jones and James Charles Dale. This lavishly illustrated book features highlights from the collections ranging from the iconic Dodo (the only soft tissue specimen of the species in existence) and the giant tuna (brought back from Madeira on a perilous sea crossing in 1846) to crabs collected by Darwin during his voyage on the Beagle, David Livingstone's tsetse fly specimens and Mary Anning's ichthyosaur. Also featured are the first described dinosaur bones, found in a small Oxfordshire village, the Red Lady of Paviland (who was in fact a man who lived 29,000 years ago) and a meteorite from the planet Mars.Each item tells a unique story about natural history, about the history of science, about collecting, or about the museum itself. They give a unique insight into the extraordinary wealth of information and the fascinating tales that can be gleaned from these collections, both from the past and for the future.

The most comprehensive book to date about these two famously extinct birds.

"Quammen brilliantly and powerfully re-creates the 19th century naturalist's intellectual and spiritual journey."--Los Angeles Times Book Review Twenty-one years passed between Charles Darwin's epiphany that "natural selection" formed the basis of evolution and the scientist's publication of On the Origin of Species. Why did Darwin delay, and what happened during the course of those two decades? The human drama and scientific basis of these years constitute a fascinating, tangled tale that elucidates the character of a cautious naturalist who initiated an intellectual revolution.

The Mascarene islands in the southern Indian Ocean - Mauritius, Réunion and Rodrigues - were once home to an extraordinary range of birds and reptiles. Evolving on these isolated volcanic islands in the absence of mammalian predators or competitors, the land was dominated by giant tortoises, parrots, skinks and geckos, burrowing boas, flightless rails & herons, and of course (in Mauritius) the Dodo. Uninhabited and only discovered in the 1500s, colonisation by European settlers in the 1600s led to dramatic changes in the ecology of the islands; the birds and tortoises were slaughtered indiscriminately while introduced rats, cats, pigs and monkeys destroyed their eggs, the once-extensive forests logged, and invasive introduced plants from all over the tropics devastated the ecosystem. The now-familiar icon of extinction, the Dodo, was gone from Mauritius within 50 years of human settlement, and over the next 150 years many of the Mascarenes' other native vertebrates followed suit. The product of over 30 years research by Anthony Cheke, Lost Land of the Dodo provides a comprehensive yet hugely enjoyable account of the story of the islands' changing ecology, interspersed with human stories, the islands' biogeographical anomalies, and much else. Many French publications, old and new, especially for Réunion, are discussed and referenced in English for the first time. The book is richly illustrated with maps and contemporary illustrations of the animals and their environment, many of which have rarely been reprinted before. Illustrated box texts look in detail at each extinct vertebrate species, while Julian Hume's superb colour plates bring many of the extinct birds to life. Lost Land of the Dodo provides the definitive account of this tragic yet remarkable fauna, and is a must-read for anyone interested in islands, their ecology and the history of our relationship with the world around us.

This volume by Strickland, an English ornithologist, and Mitchell, a physician, reconstructs the habits of the extinct dodo and related birds.. Since physical remains were so few, they also relied on contemporary paintings by artists such as Roelandt Savery, many of which are reproduced in this book.

Throughout its history, the Ashmolean has evolved to meet changing needs and reflect new ideas. In the process, it has transformed from a cabinet of curiosities, representing the world in microcosm, to a museum of art and archaeology, illustrating conne

Environmental Economics explores the ways in which economic theory and its applications, as practised and taught today, must be modified to explicitly accommodate the goal of sustainability and the vital role played by environmental capital. Pivoting around the first and second laws of thermodynamics, as well as the principles of ecological resilience, this book is divided into five key parts, which includes extensive coverage of environmental microeconomics and macroeconomics. It drills down into issues and challenges including consumer demand; production and supply; market organisation; renewable and non-renewable resources; environmental valuation; macroeconomic stabilisation, and international trade and globalisation. Drawing on case studies from forestry, water, soil, air quality, and mining, this book will equip readers with skills that enable the analyses of environmental and economic policy issues with a specific focus on the sustainability of the economy. Rich in pedagogical features, including key concepts boxes and review questions at the end of each chapter, this book will be a vital resource for upperlevel undergraduate and postgraduate students studying not only environmental economics/ecological economics but also economics in general.