Book Review: Guide to the Terrestrial Mammals of Southern California and the Eastern and Southern Sierra Nevada, by Brad Blood
Brad R. Blood’s new Guide to the Terrestrial Mammals of Southern California and the Eastern and Southern Sierra Nevada just arrived and it is an excellent resource for those wanting to find any of the 150 mammal species that occur across this sizeable and very diverse chunk of California.
Brad, consultant, and also a research assistant at the LA County Museum of Natural History, is one of California’s most eminent mammalogists. He has been following mammalwatching.com for a while and members of our community helped source photos for this new book.
This is a comprehensive book – more of an encyclopedia really. And I had not appreciated how comprehensive it was going to be until it arrived! It has two or more pages of information for each species including one or more photos plus a detailed range map, based on museum records, that ought to be particularly useful.
There is also information on taxonomy, including subspecies, and descriptions of each species and their ecology with some great trivia. Did you know for instance that the Pale Kangaroo Mouse is reported to “sleep on its back with its forelimbs stretch over the head and its hind limbs over its belly”. Adorable.
A great gift for any mammal nerd who is planning to visit California.
The book is published by Outskirts Press and – in the USA at least – seems widely available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and elsewhere.
Jon
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