Author Biography

Adrian Forsyth holds a Ph.D. in biology from Harvard University. He won the Canadian National Magazine Award for Science Writing in 1982 and 1983, the first author to win the award twice.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS Illustrations Foreword Preface In Memoriam Introduction: A Temperate View of Tropical Life 1. IN THE REALM OF THE TROPICS FERTILITY 3. CANYONS OF LIGHT 4. HANGERS-ON 5. MATAPALO 6. LISTEN TO THE FLOWERS 7. "EAT ME" 8. BUGS AND DRUGS 9. CREEPING SOCIALISTS 10. ARMY ANTS ARTFUL GUISES SOUTHBOUND JERRY'S MAGGOT 14. SINGING IN THE RAIN 15. NIGHT WALKS 16. THE ETERNAL TROPICS 17. PARADISE LOST? Appendix: Tropical Travel--A Beginner's Guide Further Reading Index

Review

E. O. Wilson Tropical Nature is superior by virtue of its freshness and authority. It is an account of the extraordinary richness of the tropical forests by two gifted young biologists who have recently experienced it and are experts on their subject. They write with the crispness of journalists sending dispatches from the field. Ernst Mayr Combines excellent science, often based on original observations, with a warm sympathy for creatures big and small. A worthy successor to the writings of the great naturalists of the American tropics. I know of no better introduction to tropical biology. Newsweek Tropical Nature...seeks to provoke curiosity about the forests -- not just provide facts about them -- and succeeds splendidly...Tropical Nature evokes the magic and wonder of a world completely contained within itself. Smithsonian It invites an appreciation of biology as few other books do and does so with extraordinary grace and humor. Philadelphia Inquirer ...one of the best natural-history books in recent years. Lyrical, richly detailed and delightful to read. Scientific American In 17 chapters, each a brief essay on tropical nature observed, these two young field biologists have made a model of contemporary natural history, cheerfully speculative, concerned as much with large pattern as with diversity, chemically informed, thoroughly ecological and Darwinian to the core.

Review Quote

SmithsonianIt invites an appreciation of biology as few other books do and does so with extraordinary grace and humor.

Excerpt from Book

Chapter 1 IN THE REALM OF THE TROPICS The "tropics" are not a plot of convenient forest in Costa Rica; they are an enormous realm of patchiness, and any theoretical thinking based on presumed general properties is bound to become an in-group exercise in short-lived futility. Paulo E. Vanzolini Tropical America encompasses a great diversity of habitats. In a single day''s drive in Ecuador it is possible to pass through Andean p

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