Field Guide to the Bats of the Amazon
Enrico Bernard author Ricardo Rocha author Adria Lopez-Baucells author Paulo Bobrowiec author Jorge Palmeirim author Christoph F J Meyer author
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Pelagic Publishing
Published:12th Mar '18
£30.00
Available to order, but very limited on stock - if we have issues obtaining a copy, we will let you know.
Do you think identifying bats in Europe or in North America is difficult? Well, try it in the Amazon. The planet’s green lung is home to the most diverse bat communities on the planet with more than 160 species currently described. Local species richness often surpasses 100 and for many, their identification in the field is, to say the least, challenging. This task will now become easier with the publication of the Field Guide to the Bats of the Amazon: a landmark handbook aimed at facilitating species identification in the field.
The book, written and designed by an international bat research team mainly based in the University of Lisbon in collaboration with the National Institute of Amazonian Research (INPA), is a guide for anyone conducting field work on bats in the Amazon or interested in bat biodiversity. It is largely based on previous published keys with modifications derived from both personal observations and years of field experience in the Brazilian Amazon at the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project (BDFFP), as well as a thorough revision of available bat keys and species descriptions.
The field guide also features the first acoustic key for Amazonian bats, illustrated with the echolocation spectrogram of most species. This represents a major step towards alleviating the daunting task of identifying the numerous species of aerial insectivorous bats that occur in the Amazon based on their echolocation calls. It further constitutes an important tool to improving the knowledge and optimizing surveys of aerial insectivorous Neotropical bats, a group which remains largely understudied.
The field guide provides an essential tool, not only for researchers, but also for bat conservationists, consultancies and anyone interested in Neotropical bats in general, and Amazonian bats in particular.
In conclusion, the book provides the means for a non- specialist (even a non-scientist) to identify the vast majority of Amazonian bats to species. Bat biologists working elsewhere in the tropics can only dream of having such a useful adjunct to field research.The easy and accurate species identifications made possible by this book will surely speed understanding of the ecological roles and population status of Amazonian bats. Every faunal region — and every field biologist handling bats — should have one!
-- Bruce D. Patterson * Acta Chiropterologica *...a remarkable book, well-worth reading and rereading if you want to gain an appreciation of how field work is done and understand the way in which observation can lead to novel insights into the biology of “everyday creatures” in their natural setting. For myself, it reminds me of my formative days while becoming a field biologist. I recommend the book highly.
-- William Douglas de Carvalho * Journal of Mammalogy *....an invaluable reference work for field biologists studying bats in the Amazon Basin.
-- Danny Brass * National Speleological Society (NSS) News *The introduction is very informative, and the following sections take us to detailed identification keys of each family of Amazonian bats. But what makes this field guide so special and enjoyable are the multiple pictures, showing details of the face, wings, body, teeth, etc., of the different bat species, but also bats in their natural habitat, and the authors at work.
-- Alice Poirier, Field Projects International * Mammal News *I congratulate the authors for being able to put themselves so well in the shoes of readers who might use this field guide and be unfamiliar with the bats of the region.
-- Jon Hall * Mammalwatching.cISBN: 9781784271657
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 450g
176 pages