Books in The World of Mammals series

As individual as human beings, baboons have amazingly different personalities and appearances. Traveling in troops, they are frequently studied by scientists and reviled by farmers who consider them a threat to their crops. Young readers receive a broad overview of how these monkeys live, their place in the animal kingdom, and the role human beings play in ensuring their continued survival in the wild.

Most people are familiar with the adorable image of a mother kangaroo bouncing to and fro and occasionally pausing to tend to her joey. This title furthers readers' knowledge of the well-known marsupials by examining everything from their sense of locomotion to the manner in which they care for their young. 'Kangaroos' teaches kids about the history of these remarkable animals in Australia and New Guinea and emphasizes the importance of protecting them and preserving their habitat.

Human interest in lizards is not new. These reptiles have been the subject of superstition and speculation for thousands of years, and their remarkably diverse forms, colors, and behavior continue to fascinate us today. We know comparatively little aboutlizards, however, and the data produced by increasing scientific study is often impenetrable or inaccessible to the interested general reader. Written as an introduction to the natural history of lizards, this book helps to answer the many questions thatboth amateur and professional naturalists ask about these animals. The first seven chapters cover the origins, form, function and color, environment, feeding, defense, reproduction, movement, and distribution of lizards -- from tiny tropical geckos to the huge Komodo dragon. The author also discusses lizards in captivity and their relationship to humans and describes the entire range of the lizard families. The book concludes with a chapter on the curious group of burrowing "worm lizards," the amphisbaenians. The highly readable and informative text is beautifully illustrated with line drawings and superb black-and-white color photographs of the spectacularly varied lizard families.