A haunting photographic record of extinction

A photograph of an extinct animal evokes a greater feeling of loss than any painting ever could. Often black and white or tinted sepia, these remarkable images have been taken mainly in zoos or wildlife parks, and in some cases depict the last known individual of the species. Lost Animals is a unique photographic record of extinction, presented by a world authority on vanished animals. Richly illustrated throughout, this handsome book features photographs dating from around 1870 to as recently as 2004, the year that witnessed the demise of the Hawaiian Po'ouli. From a mother Thylacine and her pups to birds such as the Heath Hen and the Carolina Parakeet, Errol Fuller tells the story of each animal, explains why it became extinct, and discusses the circumstances surrounding the photography.

Covering 28 extinct species, Lost Animals includes familiar examples like the last Passenger Pigeon, Martha, and one of the last Ivory-billed Woodpeckers, photographed as it peers quizzically at the hat of one of the biologists who has just ringed it. But the book includes rare images as well, many never before published. Collected together here for the first time, these photographs provide a tangible link to animals that have now vanished forever, in a book that brings the past to life while delivering a warning for the future.

Poignant and compelling, Lost Animals also includes a concise introduction that looks at the earliest days of animal photography, and an appendix of drawings and paintings of the species covered.

A lavishly illustrated celebration of these glorious animals--and a poignant lament for their future

Elephants are among the most beloved of all creatures. Their behavior can seem almost human, from their complex social interactions to their need to mourn their dead. They are also among the most persecuted of animals, subjected to untold cruelty at the hands of humans through the ages. In this stunningly illustrated book, Errol Fuller provides a rich and moving portrait of elephants, exploring their natural history, the legends that have grown up around them, their unique place in art and literature, and their urgent need for protection today.

Fuller traces the evolution of these majestic animals from prehistoric mammoths and mastodons to today's African and Asian elephants, and looks at their behavior, herd dynamics, and social life. He examines the role of elephants in cultures around the world, from folklore and fine art to the exploitation of elephants as war machines and circus animals. Fuller also discusses the importance of conservation, warning that continued poaching and habitat degradation could send these iconic animals the way of the dodo.

Featuring many evocative photos never before published, Elephant is a fittingly exquisite tribute to these breathtaking creatures.

The mammoth, with its shaggy coat, enormous tusks, and ponderous presence, is one of the great icons of extinction. It is also one of the few prehistoric creatures that is known not only from a few scattered fossilized bones, but from specimens that have been preserved perfectly, with skin, flesh and hair. Complete mammoths lie frozen in the icy wastes of Siberia, and from time to time one is exposed as the temperature or conditions change. So while there is doubt about when most prehistoric animals first appeared on earth, we know precisely when and where the mammoth lived. Not only are there excellent specimens, we also have pictures of mammoths painted by people who actually saw them alive - our ancestors who, thousands of years ago, decorated the walls of caves with the animal's image. Today, this artistic tradition continues and many modern painters have chosen to create pictures showing the mammoth as it appeared in life. Its lumbering form is often shown crossing great ice fields or snowbound plateaus. The Mammoth is one of the great icons of prehistory. The name conjures up an immediate picture of a huge, shaggy, reddish, elephant-like creature trudging across a vast icy waste, its enormous curved tusks reflecting in their whiteness the snows lying all around. The word mammoth is now so familiar that it has come to mean not just an extinct elephant but anything that is immense, formidably large or outsized. The mammoth has entered popular culture in a way that few animals have. And, curiously, we know more about them than we do about most prehistoric beasts. The majority of these are identified only from fossil bones, yet modern man has found whole frozen mammoths, completely preserved for centuries, in the ice of Siberia. We also have cave paintings, drawn by our ancestors, which show us exactly what mammoths looked like in life. These are among the earliest images produced by the hand of man. Yet the mammoth remains mysteriously elusive. The idea of an elephant living in arctic conditions seems to us a strange one. After all, today's elephants are essentially creatures of the tropics. Why did they die out, perhaps as recently as four or five thousand years ago--just as man was beginning his rise to true civilization? This book tells the story of the mammoth and its interaction with man--both in prehistory and today. Errol Fuller is the author of The Great Auk: The Extinction of the Original Penguin, and The Dodo: Extinction in Paradise.

A haunting, beautifully illustrated memorial to this iconic extinct bird

At the start of the nineteenth century, Passenger Pigeons were perhaps the most abundant birds on the planet, numbering literally in the billions. The flocks were so large and so dense that they blackened the skies, even blotting out the sun for days at a stretch. Yet by the end of the century, the most common bird in North America had vanished from the wild. In 1914, the last known representative of her species, Martha, died in a cage at the Cincinnati Zoo.

This stunningly illustrated book tells the astonishing story of North America's Passenger Pigeon, a bird species that--like the Tyrannosaur, the Mammoth, and the Dodo--has become one of the great icons of extinction. Errol Fuller describes how these fast, agile, and handsomely plumaged birds were immortalized by the ornithologist and painter John James Audubon, and captured the imagination of writers such as James Fenimore Cooper, Henry David Thoreau, and Mark Twain. He shows how widespread deforestation, the demand for cheap and plentiful pigeon meat, and the indiscriminate killing of Passenger Pigeons for sport led to their catastrophic decline. Fuller provides an evocative memorial to a bird species that was once so important to the ecology of North America, and reminds us of just how fragile the natural world can be.

Published in the centennial year of Martha's death, The Passenger Pigeon features rare archival images as well as haunting photos of live birds.