Nature of the Rainforest Costa Rica and Beyond

Description

Author: Adrian Forsyth with Patricia Fogden, Michael Fogden
ISBN: 978-0-801474750
Publisher: Comstock Publishing Associates, Zona Tropical Publications, Cornell University Press
Year of Publication: 2008
200 pp., 191 illustrations
Paperback

Nature of the Rainforest Costa Rica and Beyond is a beautiful small coffee-table sized book to read in preparation for any trip to tropical rainforests. Adrian Forsyth draws on four decades of personal encounters with the animals of the rainforest—including poison-dart frogs, three-toed sloths, bushmasters, and umbrellabirds—as a starting point to communicate key ecological topics such as biodiversity, coevolution, rarity, chemical defense, nutrient cycling, and camouflage.

Nature of the Rainforest is a breathtaking tour of an environment that is the pinnacle of biodiversity and evolutionary sophistication by an award-winning author and two photographers who love the rainforest, understand its intricacies, and have spent considerable time there documenting its wildlife and complexity. The luminous photographs capture stunning and rare creatures in action, including the now- extinct golden toad mating, a jaguar on the prowl, and the hermit hummingbird feeding.

The behaviors and characteristics of the rainforest inhabitants featured here not only illustrate the text but also advance the scientific narrative and exemplify the critical importance of conservation.

Thematic chapters are interspersed with four chapters devoted to specific habitats and regions of Costa Rica and Peru, areas with some of the most diverse arrays of plant and animal species in the world. The result is an exuberant celebration of the rainforest in text and images.

Nature of the Rainforest Costa Rica and Beyond belongs in the library of anyone lucky enough to be traveling to these diverse areas.