Wild Africa: Exploring the African Habitats

From space, Africa is a shattered land, textured by burning sands, seas of grass, and steaming forests. It is scarred by mountains and bejeweled by great lakes and rivers. Raw and beautiful, this ancient continent is alive with the greatest collection of wildlife on Earth. Wild Africa takes the reader into the heart of this fabulous landscape, introducing every habitat and revealing how the resident wildlife has adapted to thrive in its unique natural environment. Chapter topics include: The ancient heart (jungle); Islands of creation (mountains); Endless place (savannah); Sweet waters, bitter cauldrons (rivers and lakes); Sands of time (coasts); and Beautiful furnaces (deserts). The book will show how a once-stable continent has been fragmented into these six spectacular realms, and how this process has catalyzed the evolution of some remarkable animals and plants in each one. In the savannah, carnivorous ants consume as much meat as lions, and a flock of quelea can devastate thousands of acres overnight. In the jungle, where light rarely penetrates the leaf canopy, there are diminutive forms of familiar animals -- pygmy chimpanzees, forest elephants, and dwarf hippos. Meanwhile, in the extreme conditions of the desert, plants exist that have lived for thousands of years. Through amazing images and lively, authoritative text, Wild Africa immerses the reader in the natural history of this spectacular continent.