Richard D. Estes

This volume is the first scholarly book on the antelope that dominate the savanna ecosystems of eastern and southern Africa. It presents a synthesis of research conducted over a span of fifty years, mainly on the wildebeests in the Ngorongoro and Serengeti ecosystems, where eighty percent of the world's total wildebeest population lives. Wildebeest and other grazing mammals drive the ecology and evolution of the savanna ecosystem. Estes describes this process as well as detailing the wildebeest's life history, focusing on its social organization and unique reproductive system, which are adapted to the animal's epic annual migrations. He also examines conservation issues that affect wildebeest, including range-wide population declines.

This is the first scholarly book on the antelope that dominates the savanna ecosystems of eastern and southern Africa. It presents a synthesis of research conducted over a span of fifty years, mainly on the wildebeest in the Ngorongoro and Serengeti ecosystems, where eighty percent of the world's wildebeest population lives. Wildebeest and other grazing mammals drive the ecology and evolution of the savanna ecosystem. Richard D. Estes describes this process and also details the wildebeest's life history, focusing on its social organization and unique reproductive system, which are adapted to the animal's epic annual migrations. He also examines conservation issues that affect wildebeest, including range-wide population declines.

"The Behavior Guide to African Mammals" is as different from a conventional field guide as motion pictures are from a snapshot. Whether we are able to look at them face to face, on television, or in the hundreds of illustrations provided here by Daniel Otte, this guide allows us to understand what animals do and what their behavior means. Drawing on his own extensive fieldwork and on the research of many other scientists, Richard Despard Estes describes and explains the behavior of four major groups of mammals. Estes' remarkably informative guide is as up-to-date for the zoologist as it is accessible for the interested onlooker.