Download or read book The Behavioral Ecology of the Komodo Monitor written by Walter Auffenberg and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Komodo Dragons written by James B. Murphy and published by Smithsonian Institution. This book was released on 2015-03-31 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than twenty years have passed since Walter Auffenberg's monumental The Behavioral Ecology of the Komodo Monitor. In the intervening years the populations of Komodo dragons—native only to a handful of islands in southeast Indonesia—have dwindled, sparking intensive conservation efforts. During the last two decades new information about these formidable predators has emerged, and the most important findings are clearly presented here. A memoir from Walter Auffenberg and his son Kurt is followed by the latest information on Komodo dragon biology, ecology, population distribution, and behavior. The second part of the book is dedicated to step-by-step management and conservation techniques, both for wild and captive dragons. This successful model is a useful template for the conservation of other endangered species as well, for, as Kurt and Walter Auffenberg note, “The species may well indeed survive in the wild for generations to come while countless other organisms are lost.”
Download or read book The Behavioral Ecology of the Komodo Monitor written by Walter Auffenberg and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 1981 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Bengal Monitor written by Walter Auffenberg and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The most thorough and exhaustive study of a single reptile species ever carried out. [It] will become a classic."--Henry Fitch, University of Kansas "An unparalleled accomplishment in herpetology."--John L. Behler, Curator, Department of Herpetology, New York Zoological Society The Bengal Monitor, the most comprehensive study ever done on a single reptile species anywhere in the world, completes Walter Auffenberg's monumental trilogy on the behavioral ecology of monitor lizards. Together the books provide baseline ecological principles and behavioral descriptions that scientists will use to frame all future theoretical models of the genus Varanus. The group consists of about fifty species, all found in the Old World, many of which are considered endangered. Unlike the lizard species emphasized in the first two books, the Bengal monitor inhabits a huge range, extending from Java to the Iran and Afghanistan borders, including many different habitats. To unravel the biological elements of this lizard's survival strategies, Auffenberg concentrates on the diet and foraging behavior of the Bengal monitor, studying its prey base--mainly small insects--in remarkable detail. Because most monitors are mainly insectivorous, this book reflects the more usual pattern in which these lizards compete with other predatory birds and mammals in the local environment. The descriptions of complex ecological relationships assure the book's use by parasitologists, entomologists, mammalogists, and ecologists generally. To study the lizards (which measure about five feet from nose to tail), Auffenberg captured them with techniques that depended on his location and often on local good will: licensed hide hunters shot specimens out of trees in Malaysia; trained dogs trapped them in Myanmar; in the marshy lakes of the Indus Valley he hired tribal Jogi "snake charmers" to flush them from cover and catch them by hand. During a twenty-year period, his research for The Bengal Monitor took him to museums, laboratories, and field sites throughout southern Asia and then home to Florida, where he observed a colony of monitors that he transplanted to greenhouses in his backyard. Walter Auffenberg is Distinguished Research Curator Emeritus at the Florida Museum of Natural History, Gainesville. He chaired the Department of Natural Science from 1963 to 1973 and served as curator of herpetology from 1963 until he retired in 1991. He is the author of Gray's Monitor Lizard (UPF, 1988) and The Behavioral Ecology of the Komodo Monitor (UPF, 1981), for which he received the Wildlife Society's Best Wildlife Book Award. He currently serves as technical advisor for an hour-long television program on the Komodo monitor.
Download or read book Developmental Psychobiology and Behavioral Ecology written by Elliott M. Blass and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The previous volume in this series (Blass, 1986) focused on the interface between developmental psychobiology and developmental neurobiology. The volume emphasized that an understanding of central nervous system development and function can be obtained only with reference to the behaviors that it manages, and it emphasized how those behaviors, in tum, shape central development. The present volume explores another natural interface of developmental psy chobiology; behavioral ecology. It documents the progress made by developmental psychobiologists since the mid-1970s in identifying capacities of learning and con ditioning in birds and mammals during the very moments following birth-indeed, during the antenatal period. These breakthroughs in a field that had previously lain dormant reflect the need to "meet the infant where it is" in order for behavior to emerge. Accordingly, studies have been conducted at nest temperature; infants have been rewarded by opportunities to huddle, suckle, or obtain milk, behaviors that are normally engaged in the nest. In addition, there was rejection of the exces sive deprivation, extreme handling, and traumatic manipulation studies of the 1950s and 1960s that yielded information on how animals could respond to trauma but did not reveal mechanisms of normal development. In their place has arisen a series of analyses of how naturally occurring stimuli and situations gain control over behavior and how specifiable experiences impose limitations on subsequent development. Constraints were identified on the range of interactions that remained available to developing animals as a result of particular events.
Download or read book Behavioral Ecology and Conservation Biology written by Timothy M. Caro and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1998-08-27 with total page 599 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Behavioural ecologists study how animals maximize their genetic representation, whilst conservation biologists study small populations & attempt to prevent species extinctions. This volume attempts to link these disciplines formally.
Download or read book Ecology of Nusa Tenggara written by Kathryn Monk and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2012-06-05 with total page 1020 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ecology of Nusa Tenggara and Maluku is a comprehensive ecological survey of a series ecologically diverse islands in the Pacific. It contains extensive baseline data on the region’s people, ecosystems, biodiversity and land use, and discusses these in a historical as well as a developmental context. It also provides guidelines for scientific researchers on worthwhile ecological and socio-economic research projects. This region is the most diverse in Indonesia. Its myriad islands range from small atolls to active volcanic islands rising 3,500 meters above sea level. Each province has extensive coastlines—only 10 percent of the province of Maluku is land. The seas include shallow continental shelves and some of the deepest sea basins in the world. The complexity and vulnerability of these islands mean that development and environment are inextricably linked. If this is not understood and acted upon, there is no possibility for the ecologically sustainable development of Nusa Tenggara and Maluku.
Download or read book The Physiological Ecology of Vertebrates written by Brian Keith McNab and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 618 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though physiological ecology has been a discipline since the 1950s, McNab redresses a perceived absence of a theoretical framework with a comparative, inductive approach to studying vertebrate evolution and ecology. He discusses the patterns and limits of adaptation to the environment, acclimation to temperature variation and material exchange with the environment, and the energetics of locomotion and growth. The final section treats the significance of energetics for population ecology and distribution. Includes a taxonomic as well as subject index. Suitable for advanced students and researchers in the biological and ecological sciences. The Gainesville, FL-based author is referred to by the foreword writer as a keen naturalist, but his credentials are not stated. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR.
Download or read book The Song Of The Dodo written by David Quammen and published by Random House. This book was released on 2012-03-31 with total page 706 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why have island ecosystems always suffered such high rates of extinction? In our age, with all the world's landscapes, from Tasmania to the Amazon to Yellowstone, now being carved into island-like fragments by human activity, the implications of this question are more urgent than ever. Over the past eight years, David Quammen has followed the threads of island biogeography on a globe-encircling journey of discovery.
Download or read book Evolution and Escalation written by Geerat Vermeij and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-09 with total page 547 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is one biologist's interpretation of the chronology of life during the last six hundred million years of earth history: an extended essay that draws on the author's own data and a wide-ranging literature survey to discuss the nature and dynamics of evolutionary change in organisms and their biological surroundings. Geerat Vermeij demonstrates that escalation--the process by which species adapt to, or are limited by, their enemies as the latter increase in ability to acquire and retain resources--has been a dominant theme in the history of life despite frequent episodes of extinction.
Download or read book Monster of God The Man Eating Predator in the Jungles of History and the Mind written by David Quammen and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2004-09-17 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Rich detail and vivid anecdotes of adventure....A treasure trove of exotic fact and hard thinking." —New York Times Book Review For millennia, lions, tigers, and their man-eating kin have kept our dark, scary forests dark and scary, and their predatory majesty has been the stuff of folklore. But by the year 2150 big predators may only exist on the other side of glass barriers and chain-link fences. Their gradual disappearance is changing the very nature of our existence. We no longer occupy an intermediate position on the food chain; instead we survey it invulnerably from above—so far above that we are in danger of forgetting that we even belong to an ecosystem. Casting his expert eye over the rapidly diminishing areas of wilderness where predators still reign, the award-winning author of The Song of the Dodo and The Tangled Tree examines the fate of lions in India's Gir forest, of saltwater crocodiles in northern Australia, of brown bears in the mountains of Romania, and of Siberian tigers in the Russian Far East. In the poignant and troublesome ferocity of these embattled creatures, we recognize something primeval deep within us, something in danger of vanishing forever.
Download or read book Herpetology written by Laurie J. Vitt and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2013-03-25 with total page 773 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fourth edition of the textbook Herpetology covers the basic biology of amphibians and reptiles, with updates in nearly every conceptual area. Not only does it serve as a solid foundation for modern herpetology courses, but it is also relevant to courses in ecology, behavior, evolution, systematics, and morphology. Examples taken from amphibians and reptiles throughout the world make this book a useful herpetology textbook in several countries. Naturalists, amateur herpetologists, herpetoculturists, zoo professionals, and many others will find this book readable and full of relevant natural history and distributional information. Amphibians and reptiles have assumed a central role in research because of the diversity of ecological, physiological, morphological, behavioral, and evolutionary patterns they exhibit. This fully revised edition brings the latest research to the reader, ranging over topics in evolution, reproduction, behavior and more, allowing students and professionals to keep current with a quickly moving field. Heavily revised and updated with discussion of squamate (lizard and snake) taxonomy and new content reflected in current literature Includes increased focus on conservation biology in herpetology while retaining solid content on organismal biology of reptiles and amphibians Presents new photos included from authors' extensive library
Download or read book The Origin and Early Evolutionary History of Snakes written by David J. Gower and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-08-11 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Latest developments in understanding how, when and where the extraordinary body plan and ecology of snakes evolved from lizard ancestors.
Download or read book Varanoid Lizards of the World written by Erick Pianka and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2004-09-21 with total page 654 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Monitor lizards (genus Varanus) have attracted a great deal of interest--these large and impressive lizards are often the centerpiece of reptile house exhibits. Monitors tend to be fairly wary and difficult to observe--therefore they are not particularly tractable research subjects, but they have nevertheless received an extraordinary amount of attention from devoted students.Varanoid Lizards of the World is a comprehensive account of virtually everything important that is known about monitor lizards, beginning with detailed species accounts and proceeding to various modern comparative analyses. Where possible, people who have had detailed field experience with a particular species have assembled species accounts. In the process of reporting what is known, we also identify what remains to be learned about these lizards. We hope to establish a prototype showing how such a diverse monophyletic group can be exploited both to identify and to understand the actual course of evolution. As such, this effort becomes a protocol for future workers to follow for other groups of closely-related species.
Download or read book Dinosaurs of the Air written by Gregory S. Paul and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2002-05 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book synthesises the growing body of evidence which suggests that modern-day birds have evolved from theropod dinosaurs of prehistoric times. The author argues that the ancestor-descendant relationship can also be reversed.
Download or read book On the Trail of the Komodo Dragon written by Jack Myers and published by Boyds Mills Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explorations originally appeared in Highlights for children.
Download or read book Conservation of Endangered Species in Captivity written by Edward F. Gibbons and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1995-01-01 with total page 832 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This multi-disciplinary approach to conservation of endangered species in captivity is organized taxonomically and by scientific discipline. The seven taxonomic groups included are invertebrates; fish, reptiles and amphibians, birds, marine mammals, primates, and other mammals. Within each taxonomic group, four scientific disciplines are explored: conservation, reproductive physiology, behavior, and captive design. Conservation chapters summarize the status of the taxonomic group both in the wild and in captivity. Reviewed in the reproductive physiology chapters are anatomy, endocrinology and physiology for females and males of the taxonomic group. In the section on behavior the functions of captive animal research, the methods used, and the problems encountered are discussed. And, in examining captive design the authors provide a general historical outline of the philosophies, trends, and scientific issues for the targeted taxonomic group.
