This is a book about some of nature's most alluring and forbidding creatures, written by a man with an abiding passion for snakes, as well as for science, the fate of the planet, and the wonder of life. Harry Greene presents every facet of the natural history of snakes—their diversity, evolution, and conservation—and at the same time makes a personal statement of why these animals are so compelling. This book provides an up-to-date summary of the biology of snakes on a global basis. Eight chapters are devoted to general biology topics, including anatomy, feeding, venoms, predation and defense, social behavior, reproduction, evolution, and conservation; eight chapters survey the major snake groups, including blindsnakes, boas, colubrids, stiletto snakes, cobras, sea snakes, and vipers. Details of particular interest, such as coral snake mimicry and the evolution of the0 rattle, are highlighted as special topics. Chapter introductory essays are filled with anecdotes that will tempt nonspecialists to read on, while the book's wealth of comprehensive information will gratify herpeto-culturalists and professional biologists. Greene's writing is clear, engaging, and full of appreciation for his subject. Michael and Patricia Fogden are known internationally for their outstanding work, and their stunning color photographs of snakes in their natural habitats are a brilliant complement to Greene's text. Here is a scientific book that provides accurate information in an accessible way to general readers, strongly advocates for a persecuted group of animals, encourages conservation—not just of snakes but of ecosystems—and credits science for enriching our lives. In helping readers explore the role of snakes in human experience, Greene and the Fogdens show how science and art can be mutual pathways to understanding.

Snakes: The Evolution of Mystery in Nature (Director's Circle Book of the Associates of the University o)

Science & Math

Greene, Harry W.

Biological Sciences

University of California Press

In 1540 Francisco Vasquez de Coronado introduced the first domestic livestock to the American Southwest. Over the subsequent four centuries, cattle, horses, and sheep have created a massive ecological experiment on these arid grasslands, changing them in ways we can never know with certainty. The Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch in the high desert of southeastern Arizona is an 8,000-acre sanctuary where grazing has been banned since 1968. In this spirited account of thirty years of research at the ranch, Carl and Jane Bock summarize the results of their fieldwork, which was aimed at understanding the dynamics of grasslands in the absence of livestock. The View from Bald Hill provides an intimate look at the natural history of this unique site and illuminates many issues pertaining to the protection and restoration of our nation's grasslands.

The View from Bald Hill: Thirty Years in an Arizona Grassland (Organisms and Environments) (Volume 1)

History

Bock, Jane H.

Bock, Carl E. E.

Americas

This is a book about some of nature's most alluring and forbidding creatures, written by a man with an abiding passion for snakes, as well as for science, the fate of the planet, and the wonder of life. Harry Greene presents every facet of the natural history of snakes―their diversity, evolution, and conservation―and at the same time makes a personal statement of why these animals are so compelling. This book provides an up-to-date summary of the biology of snakes on a global basis. Eight chapters are devoted to general biology topics, including anatomy, feeding, venoms, predation and defense, social behavior, reproduction, evolution, and conservation; eight chapters survey the major snake groups, including blindsnakes, boas, colubrids, stiletto snakes, cobras, sea snakes, and vipers. Details of particular interest, such as coral snake mimicry and the evolution of the0 rattle, are highlighted as special topics. Chapter introductory essays are filled with anecdotes that will tempt nonspecialists to read on, while the book's wealth of comprehensive information will gratify herpeto-culturalists and professional biologists. Greene's writing is clear, engaging, and full of appreciation for his subject. Michael and Patricia Fogden are known internationally for their outstanding work, and their stunning color photographs of snakes in their natural habitats are a brilliant complement to Greene's text. Here is a scientific book that provides accurate information in an accessible way to general readers, strongly advocates for a persecuted group of animals, encourages conservation―not just of snakes but of ecosystems―and credits science for enriching our lives. In helping readers explore the role of snakes in human experience, Greene and the Fogdens show how science and art can be mutual pathways to understanding.

Snakes: The Evolution of Mystery in Nature

Tracks and Shadows: Field Biology as Art

Intellectually rich, intensely personal, and beautifully written, Tracks and Shadows is both an absorbing autobiography of a celebrated field biologist and a celebration of beauty in nature. Harry W. Greene, award-winning author of Snakes: The Evolution of Mystery in Nature, delves into the poetry of field biology, showing how nature eases our existential quandaries. More than a memoir, the book is about the wonder of snakes, the beauty of studying and understanding natural history, and the importance of sharing the love of nature with humanity. Greene begins with his youthful curiosity about the natural world and moves to his stints as a mortician's assistant, ambulance driver, and army medic. In detailing his academic career, he describes how his work led him to believe that nature’s most profound lessons lurk in hard-won details. He discusses the nuts and bolts of field research and teaching, contrasts the emotional impact of hot dry habitats with hot wet ones, imparts the basics of snake biology, and introduces the great explorers Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. He reflects on friendship and happiness, tackles notions like anthropomorphism and wilderness, and argues that organisms remain the core of biology, science plays key roles in conservation, and natural history offers an enlightened form of contentment.

Biographies & Memoirs

Professionals & Academics

American Bison combines the latest scientific information and one man's personal experience in an homage to one of the most magnificent animals to have roamed America's vast, vanished grasslands. Dale F. Lott, a distinguished behavioral ecologist who was born on the National Bison Range and has studied the buffalo for many years, relates what is known about this iconic animal's life in the wild and its troubled history with humans. Written with unusual grace and verve, American Bison takes us on a journey into the bison's past and shares a compelling vision for its future, offering along the way a valuable introduction to North American prairie ecology. We become Lott's companions in the field as he acquaints us with the social life and physiology of the bison, sharing stories about its impressive physical prowess and fascinating relationships. Describing the entire grassland community in which the bison live, he writes about the wolves, pronghorn, prairie dogs, grizzly bears, and other animals and plants, detailing the interdependent relationships among these inhabitants of a lost landscape. Lott also traces the long and dramatic relationship between the bison and Native Americans, and gives a surprising look at the history of the hide hunts that delivered the coup de grâce to the already dwindling bison population in a few short years. This book gives us a peek at the rich and unique ways of life that evolved in the heart of America. Lott also dismantles many of the myths we have created about these ways of life, and about the bison in particular, to reveal the animal itself: ruminating, reproducing, and rutting in its full glory. His portrait of the bison ultimately becomes a plea to conserve its wildness and an eloquent meditation on the importance of the wild in our lives.

American Bison: A Natural History

Lott, Dale F.

American Bison combines the latest scientific information and one man's personal experience in an homage to one of the most magnificent animals to have roamed America's vast, vanished grasslands. Dale F. Lott, a distinguished behavioral ecologist who was born on the National Bison Range and has studied the buffalo for many years, relates what is known about this iconic animal's life in the wild and its troubled history with humans. Written with unusual grace and verve, American Bison takes us on a journey into the bison's past and shares a compelling vision for its future, offering along the way a valuable introduction to North American prairie ecology. We become Lott's companions in the field as he acquaints us with the social life and physiology of the bison, sharing stories about its impressive physical prowess and fascinating relationships. Describing the entire grassland community in which the bison live, he writes about the wolves, pronghorn, prairie dogs, grizzly bears, and other animals and plants, detailing the interdependent relationships among these inhabitants of a lost landscape. Lott also traces the long and dramatic relationship between the bison and Native Americans, and gives a surprising look at the history of the hide hunts that delivered the coup de grâce to the already dwindling bison population in a few short years. This book gives us a peek at the rich and unique ways of life that evolved in the heart of America. Lott also dismantles many of the myths we have created about these ways of life, and about the bison in particular, to reveal the animal itself: ruminating, reproducing, and rutting in its full glory. His portrait of the bison ultimately becomes a plea to conserve its wildness and an eloquent meditation on the importance of the wild in our lives.

American Bison: A Natural History (Organisms And Environments) (Volume 6)

Lott, Dale F. F.

As recently as 11,000 years ago―"near time" to geologists―mammoths, mastodons, gomphotheres, ground sloths, giant armadillos, native camels and horses, the dire wolf, and many other large mammals roamed North America. In what has become one of science's greatest riddles, these large animals vanished in North and South America around the time humans arrived at the end of the last great ice age. Part paleontological adventure and part memoir, Twilight of the Mammoths presents in detail internationally renowned paleoecologist Paul Martin's widely discussed and debated "overkill" hypothesis to explain these mysterious megafauna extinctions. Taking us from Rampart Cave in the Grand Canyon, where he finds himself "chest deep in sloth dung," to other important fossil sites in Arizona and Chile, Martin's engaging book, written for a wide audience, uncovers our rich evolutionary legacy and shows why he has come to believe that the earliest Americans literally hunted these animals to death. As he discusses the discoveries that brought him to this hypothesis, Martin relates many colorful stories and gives a rich overview of the field of paleontology as well as his own fascinating career. He explores the ramifications of the overkill hypothesis for similar extinctions worldwide and examines other explanations for the extinctions, including climate change. Martin's visionary thinking about our missing megafauna offers inspiration and a challenge for today's conservation efforts as he speculates on what we might do to remedy this situation―both in our thinking about what is "natural" and in the natural world itself.

Twilight of the Mammoths:: Ice Age Extinctions and the Rewilding of America (Organisms and Environments) (Volume 8)

Martin, Paul S. S.

"Many of the findings in the book . . . are classics of ecology. . . . A rare and delightful insight into timely science."—Jane Lubchenco, Nature\n"Estes's refreshing narrative deftly weaves rigorous science with personal reflection to create an absorbing and introspective read that is equal parts memoir, ecological textbook, and motivational guidebook for young ecologists."—Science\nTo newly minted biologist James Estes, the sea otters he was studying in the leafy kelp forests off the coast of Alaska appeared to have an unbalanced relationship with their greater environment. Gorging themselves on the sea urchins that grazed among the kelp, these small charismatic mammals seemed to give little back in return. But as Estes dug deeper, he unearthed a far more complex relationship between the otter and its underwater environment, discovering that otters play a critical role in driving positive ecosystem dynamics. While teasing out the connective threads, he began to question our assumptions about ecological relationships. These questions would ultimately inspire a lifelong quest to better understand the surprising complexity of our natural world and the unexpected ways we discover it. 
Serendipity tells the story of James Estes’s life as a naturalist and the concepts that have driven his interest in researching the ecological role of top-level predators. Using the relationships between sea otters, kelp, and sea urchins as a touchstone, Estes retraces his investigations of numerous other species, ecosystems, and ecological processes in an attempt to discover why ecologists can learn so many details about the systems in which they work and yet understand so little about the broader processes that influence these systems. Part memoir, part natural history, and deeply inquisitive, Serendipity will entertain and inform readers as it raises thoughtful questions about our relationship with the natural world.\nFrom the Inside Flap\n&;James Estes&;s career and writings have demonstrated repeatedly that a top-down, predator-mediated view of ecosystem dynamics can explain a lot about nature&;s structure and dynamics. Reading this book will reward any naturalist/ecologist/modeler.&#34;&;Michael E. Soule, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Santa Cruz; cofounder and first president of the Society for Conservation Biology and the Wildlands Network\n&;This is a phenomenal book! Filled with fascinating and insightful stories told without bravado, it offers excellent advice to young scientists in the context of the development of a distinguished career. Estes&;s compelling narrative makes ecosystems&#160;come alive, and the result is that we learn the details of phase shifts, otter physiology,&#160;and urchin gametes without even realizing that we are learning.&;&;Loren McClenachan,&#160;Elizabeth and Lee Ainslie Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Colby College\n&;Serendipity does what few science books written for a general audience do: it reveals a preeminent marine ecologist&;s professional journey into science, and the astonishing turns that led to major breakthroughs and challenges along the way. Nobody could write this better&;Estes has walked the walk.&;&;Cristina Eisenberg, Chief Scientist, Earthwatch Institute, and author of The Carnivore Way: Coexisting with and Conserving North America&;s Predators\n&;If you like Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Darwin, you will relish&#160;Serendipity, a remarkable journey of discovery&;the modern version of challenge, intellectual and physical. From mollusks to whales, predators to people, James Estes unearths the dynamics of ecological interaction in a remote and wild place. Rich, innovative, and insightful, this beautifully written account is reminiscent of tropical expeditions 150 years earlier. But its messaging is relevant to today&;over-harvesting, climate change, human impacts. Whereas Wallace and Darwin brought us theory and natural history, Estes a

Serendipity: An Ecologist's Quest to Understand Nature (Organisms and Environments) (Volume 14)

Estes, James A.

Dieses Buch handelt von den faszinierenden und gleichzeitig gefürchtetsten Geschöpfen, die die Natur hervorgebracht hat. Seit jeher haben Menschen Schlangen mit Neugier und Angst, aber auch mit Ehrfurcht und Abscheu betrachtet. Schlangen bedeuten extreme Gefahr, Ungewissheit, jedoch auch wertvolle Nahrung. In vielen Kulturen symbolisieren sie besonders Positives: Fruchtbarkeit, Verjüngung, auch Frieden oder Heilung. Das Buch ist in drei Teile gegliedert. Im ersten geht es um die Klassifikation und die allgemeine Biologie von Schlangen. Teil II gibt einen Überblick über alle wichtigen systematischen Gruppen der Serpentes. Im dritten und abschliessenden Teil sind Evolution und Biogeographie von Schlangen das Thema. Harry W. Greene und die Photographen Michael und Patricia Fogden führen Wissenschaft und Kunst zusammen, um dem Leser die Schönheit und Faszination dieser Tiere zu vermitteln. Herausgekommen ist so eine einzigartige Lektüre für interessierte Laien sowie für Biologen, Herpetologen und Terrarianer.   

Schlangen: Faszination einer unbekannten Welt (German Edition)

Birkhauser

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Greene, Harry W.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Greene, Harry W.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Greene, Harry W.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Snakes: The Evolution of Mystery in Nature (Director's Circle Book of the Associates of the University o)

The View from Bald Hill: Thirty Years in an Arizona Grassland (Organisms and Environments) (Volume 1)

Snakes: The Evolution of Mystery in Nature

Tracks and Shadows: Field Biology as Art

American Bison: A Natural History

American Bison: A Natural History (Organisms And Environments) (Volume 6)

Twilight of the Mammoths:: Ice Age Extinctions and the Rewilding of America (Organisms and Environments) (Volume 8)

Tracks and Shadows: Field Biology as Art

Serendipity: An Ecologist's Quest to Understand Nature (Organisms and Environments) (Volume 14)

Schlangen: Faszination einer unbekannten Welt (German Edition)