Wild ways. Field guide to the behaviour of Southern African mammals

Description:

Southern Africa has one of the richest and most accessible mammal faunas in the world. Tens of thousands of visitors to parks and reserves, hikers, hunters, farmers and other out-door people have opportunities to observe the behaviour of these mammals. Until now there has been no single source of information about the behaviour of southern Africa's mammals.

Wild ways brings together the fascinating information on what mammals do and why they do it. The first section introduces the concepts of ethology - the science of animal behaviour - and traces its development and the techniques that have been developed to tackle the formidable problems of working on animals in the wild.

The 117 species accounts describe the behaviour of mammals from hedgehogs to hares, baboons to pangolins, dassies to aardvarks, lions to rats, whales to tsessebe and even fruit bats. The reader needs no special knowledge of zoology or animal behaviour to understand and enjoy this book. Technical jargon is avoided and the ethological terms are explained in the text and in a glossary. An index to English and scientific names makes the book easy to use.