Galapagos: A Natural History, Revised and Expanded

An older book and a bit of a disaointment

was a great primer to my trip to Galapagos

This is the best single vade mecum for a trip to the Galapagos. It provides a geographic, historical, scientific overview, along with chapter-by-chapter descriptions of plant and animal life. It includes some excellent illustrations, though it is not a substitute for a field guide. On the other hand, a field guide does not provide the clear, concise ethological descriptions found in this book. The book also includes some helpful charts on species origins, adaptive radiations, and species distributions, among other things, and has some lovely photos (though for Galapagos photography, the work of Tui de Roy is the gold standard and a must).Jackson was my first book on the Galapagos (aside from the chapter in Voyage of the Beagle) and it led me into a sense of wonder, gratitude, and responsibility for a unique place that our species must work hard to deserve and preserve, given how we have treated it in the past.

All trips to the Galapagos are with trained guides, and if you are lucky you'll go with one of the really experienced ones. No matter who you are with, this is a great book to look through before going and to take with you. The text reinforces the amazing stories you'll hear about the landscapes, plants and animals you'll see and the photos and other illustrations are good. The checklist in the back of the book is fun to use as well.The other books I enjoyed were Terrestrial Life of Galapagos and Marine Life of Galapagos (available in Ecuador/at the National Park store in Puerto Ayora) and The Beak of the Finch. The wildlife of the Galapagos book wasn't used.

This is a well received book on the natural history of the fascinating Galápagos Islands that I am using to prepare for an upcoming trip and anticipate using while their. I purchased a used copy that is in excellent condition and arrived when promised.

I feel that this book will be an excellent preparation for an upcoming visit. The keyed list of the Islands' plants an animals should be particularly useful. More, higher quality color photos would be welcome additions, though.

I bought this to take with me on an upcoming trip to the Galapagos; information in the book was superb: interesting facts, great pictures and drawings; overall very good information; I was a bit surprised by how heavy the book is because of the high-quality paper used for the pages. With limited weight allowed on the plane, we may have to read, memorize and leave the book behind

Overall, it's quite complete with land formation and history of the island, good descriptions of wild life and some suggestions for what to see where. It was disappointing to not have better maps to concretely illustrate where wild life is found.

I read this before my holiday there, but it didn't really mean a lot until I'd been there. It will be useful as a reference when I give a talk with my photos in a few months. I was disappointed that there wasn't much information on fish, and colour pictures would be useful for identification. Many illustrations are in black and white and poor.

The best book about the Galapagos I know.

Conocía la primera version de este libro con cual trabaja mucho en mis años de guía turística en las islas y el Ecuador. Las explicaciones y descripciones de la fauna y flora son precisas y comprensibles sin que vayan en detalles demasiado científicos. También los senderos, los puntos de visita posibles son bien descritos. Sola lastima que no hay salido una version más reciente todavía ya que entretanto se han descubierto bastantes cosas nuevas y se han abierto unos senderos mas. A pesar de eso, este libro queda el mejor libro de referencia, si ser una obra de fotos espectaculares.

This is a lovely resource about the plant, animal, historical and geological features of the Galápagos Islands. Very readable and clearly laid out. I would have liked more pictures.

Good research and reference book