Marie Jeanne Raherilalao

In 1989, a book written by Martin E. Nicoll and Olivier Langrand was published on the protected areas of Madagascar, which heralded in a new era of conservation for this island nation. In the subsequent three decades, there was an important increase in inventories and studies on Madagascar’s terrestrial biota. This work led to significant changes in the systematics of Malagasy plants and animals, a large percentage unique to the island, and a notable augmentation in knowledge on Malagasy biodiversity. In addition, the considerable expansion of the protected area network, reinforcement of legal tools, and the development of new management modes and tools have contributed to a modernization of the protected area network. The purpose of these bilingual, French-English books is to present a large-scale update of information available from 98 terrestrial protected areas, various analyses to understand general trends in the conservation of these sites, and a synthesis to assess the needs for future scientific programs. Beautifully illustrated throughout with color maps, graphs, and photos, these three volumes will be an important reference for students, researchers, protected area managers, conservationists, and visiting ecotourists.

Madagascar, with its unique and highly endemic flora and fauna, is a world conservation priority. Although the number of bird species occurring on the island is less diverse than that of most other tropical countries, the level of endemism is remarkable and includes five endemic families and two subfamilies. This pocket-sized book, written in non-technical French and beautifully illustrated throughout, provides a general introduction to Malagasy birds as well as a detailed and up-to-date synthesis of information related to the ecology and natural history of all of Madagascar’s unique bird families and subfamilies. Birdwatchers and researchers are almost unanimously enchanted by the extraordinary natural history and morphological characteristics of the island’s avifauna, and as such, birds are among the most studied vertebrate groups on Madagascar. However, certain aspects of how these birds live have only recently been discovered, and this book will be an informative resource for even the most seasoned of birdwatchers.

One of the largest islands in the world, Madagascar is home to an astonishing array of endemic vertebrate biodiversity. While recent decades have seen numerous publications on the subject-ranging from technical papers to species descriptions and field guides-no detailed atlas exists. This bilingual French-English volume, Atlas of Selected Land Vertebrates of Madagascar, fills that niche. With more than four hundred color illustrations and maps, the Atlas brings together information from numerous sources-including data gathered during extensive biological inventories in some of the most remote forests of the island, from specimens in natural history museums around the world, and from the relevant literature - to present distributional maps on a range of taxa as well as descriptive text that interprets associated patterns and, for most taxa, provides potential habitat models. Featuring reptiles from plated to iguanid lizards; birds from paradise flycatchers to serpent eagles; and mammals from flying foxes-fruit-eating bats with meter-wide wingspans - to the enigmatic tenrecs and puma-like fossa, a member of an endemic family of Carnivora; this volume represents the culmination of decades of research. The Atlas will be an important reference for all students, researchers, naturalists, and conservationists interested in the land vertebrates of Madagascar, one of the most extraordinary and threatened biodiversity hotspots on Earth.