Product Description

Are you among the millions of people whose only opportunity to observe wildlife comes after it has been run over and pressed into a patty by big rigs, then desiccated by the elements until even flies don’t recognize it? This is the field guide for you! FLATTENED FAUNA fills an important gap in our natural history knowledge and fosters a heightened respect for the ecology of the paved environment.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #174344 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-01
• Released on: 2006-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781580087551
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From the Publisher
• A classic field guide to the 36 most common species of roadside remains in North America. • Includes descriptions and silhouetted illustrations of the top squashed avian, mammalian, reptilian, and amphibian species. • Due to rabid interest from overseas, the expanded new edition includes global ramifications of international necrology.

About the Author
Retired biology professor ROGER M. KNUTSON writes on nature and politics from his home in Charlevoix, Michigan, where he encounters flattened fauna in their natural habitat regularly.

Customer Reviews

"The" field guide for the naturalist in a hurry
Roger Knutson, a biologist at Luther College, IA, has put together a truly ingenious little book. A guide to the "really most sincerely dead" animals one often sees along streets, roads, and highways. While some may dismiss this book as a parody of other field guides, it is full of accurate, meaningful biological information about animals that frequent roads and roadsides, and that often find themselves smashed into two dimensions.

Is this book funny? Yes! Is it a parody on other field guides? Perhaps.

So, what is this book about anyway? This is a guide to the animal remains left behind after most carrion feeders and decomposers are done with a dead animal. EEEeeewwwww. OK, OK, perhaps it is a bit grotesque, but there is meaningful biological information to be had there.

The book is well written, it is fun, and can be used throughout much of North America.

It makes a great gift for the natualist on your gift list. After all, let's face it, most of us spend more time on the road than we do out "in" nature.

As a biologist myself, I give this book 5 stars for biological content and for the tongue in cheek approach to this somewhat unsavory topic.

Give it a try! Or give it to someone else.

A fairly good reference, and funny!
This book makes a great gift for the person who has everything! It certainly gets people's attention....and actually, you can identify the "flattened fauna" spotted while hiking with this book. I liked it.

Wonderful book.
This is a wonderful book for many reasons. The slam on the snob journals, where they list the camera used (the author studiously lists the photocopier that best took the image) is one of my favorites. True, death isn't funny (or pretty), but hey, it is a jungle out there. If you are kind of a weenie, and can't bear to think of Bambi and Thumper buying it on the freeway, this is not the book for you. But with a title like "Flattened Fauna", why on earth would you consider buying it?

This book is a gem in terms of dark humor. If that's your thing, you will enjoy it very much. If you think the world is full of sweet, adorable little animals bucking up on hind legs, talking in helium-altered baby voices, find a more suitable book, possibly in the children's section.