The duo of John Kricher and Kevin Loughlin have brought to eager naturalists a new extensively updated second edition of Prof. Kricher’s classic book “Galápagos: A Natural History,” a nearly five hundred page comprehensive and richly illustrated guidebook that both presents the natural history of the islands in a manner that is as applicable in the field as it is in the library.
Most readers of this publication are likely to be at least somewhat familiar with the famous 1831-1836 journey of Charles Darwin aboard the H.M. S. Beagle (and for those who aren’t, I highly recommend his own account of it, published as The Voyage of the Beagle). However much less attention seems to be given to what happened at the locations of his researches afterward.
Anyone who has ever made the journey to the famous Galápagos Islands will tell the prospective traveler two things: that they’ll be amazed at what they will see there (both good and, due to the high levels tourism in recent years, bad) and that they’ll need to travel with as little luggage as possible. And – sad to say – one of the things that adds weight quickly is a stack of field guides.
The many ways in which Galápagos Islands are extraordinary is a subject that has been taken up by naturalists, novelists, and explorers for centuries. From Darwin and Melville to William Beebe to the Grants, various aspects of the islands’ geology, flora, and fauna have been chronicled, often with superb skill and profound insight, in different […]