Most living carnivorous marsupials lead a secretive and solitary existence. From tiny insect eaters to the formidable Tasmanian Devil, Secret Lives of Carnivorous Marsupials offers rare insight into the history and habits of these creatures – from their discovery by intrepid explorers and scientists to their unique life cycles and incredible ways of hunting prey. Secret Lives of Carnivorous Marsupials provides a guide to the world’s 136 living species of carnivorous marsupials and is packed with never-before-seen photos. Biogeography, relationships and conservation are also covered in detail. Readers are taken on a journey through remote Australia, the Americas and dark, mysterious New Guinea – some of the last truly wild places on Earth. The book describes frenzied mating sessions, minuscule mammals that catch prey far larger than themselves, and extinct predators including marsupial lions, wolves and even sabre-toothed kangaroos.

Predators with Pouches provides a unique synthesis of current knowledge of the world’s carnivorous marsupials—from Patagonia to New Guinea and North America to Tasmania. Written by 63 experts in each field, the book covers a comprehensive range of disciplines including evolution and systematics, reproductive biology, physiology, ecology, behaviour and conservation. Predators with Pouches reveals the relationships between the American didelphids and the Australian dasyurids, and explores the role of the marsupial fauna in the mammal community. It introduces the geologically oldest marsupials, from the Americas, and examines the fall from former diversity of the larger marsupial carnivores and their convergent evolution with placental forms. The book covers all aspects of carnivorous marsupials, including interesting features of life history, their unique reproduction, the physiological basis for early senescence in semelparous dasyurids, sex ratio variation and juvenile dispersal. It looks at gradients in nutrition—from omnivory to insectivory to carnivory—as well as distributional ecology, social structure and conservation dilemmas.

On the evening of 26 August 2009, the last known pipistrelle emerges from its day-time shelter on Christmas Island. Scientists, desperate about its conservation, set up a maze of netting to try to catch it. It is a forlorn and futile exercise – even if captured, there is little future in just one bat. But the bat evades the trap easily, and continues foraging. It is not recorded again that night, and not at all the next night. The bat is never again recorded. The scientists search all nearby areas over the following nights. It has gone. There are no more bats. Its corpse is not, will never be, found. It is the silent, unobtrusive death of the last individual. It is extinction. This book is about that bat, about those scientists, about that island. But mostly it is an attempt to understand that extinction; an unusual extinction, because it was predicted, witnessed and its timing is precise. A Bat's End is a compelling forensic examination of the circumstances and players surrounding the extinction of the Christmas Island pipistrelle. A must-read for environmental scientists, policy-makers, and organisations and individuals with an interest in conservation.

Wildlife Research in Australia: Practical and Applied Methods is a guide to conducting wildlife research in Australia. It provides advice on working through applications to animal ethics committees, presents general operating procedures for a range of wildlife research methods, and details animal welfare considerations for all Australian taxa. Compiled by over 200 researchers with extensive experience in field-based wildlife research, teaching and animal ethics administration, this comprehensive book supports best practice research methods and helps readers navigate the institutional animal care approval process. Wildlife Research in Australia will help foster a national approach to wildlife research methods, and is an invaluable tool for researchers, teachers, students, animal ethics committee members and organisations participating in wildlife research and other activities with wildlife.

This book focuses on the evolution, biogeography, systematics, taxonomy, and ecology of New World and Australasian marsupials, greatly expanding the current knowledge base. There are roughly 140 species of New World marsupials, of which the opossum is the best known. Thanks to recent research, there is now an increasing amount of understanding about their evolution, biogeography, systematics, ecology, and conservation in the Americas, especially in South America. There are also some 270 marsupial species in the Australasian region, many of which have been subject to research only in recent years. Based on this information and the authors’ extensive research, this book provides comprehensive insights into the world's marsupials. It will appeal to academics and specialized researchers, students of zoology, paleontology, evolutionary biology, ecology, physiology and conservation as well as interested non-experts.

The Australian continent provides a unique perspective on the evolution and ecology of carnivorous animals. In earlier ages, Australia provided the arena for a spectacular radiation of marsupial and reptilian predators. The causes of their extinctions are still the subject of debate. Since European settlement, Australia has seen the extinction of one large marsupial predator (the thylacine), another (the Tasmanian devil) is in danger of imminent extinction, and still others have suffered dramatic declines. By contrast, two recently-introduced predators, the fox and cat, have been spectacularly successful, with devastating impacts on the Australian fauna. Carnivores of Australia: Past, Present and Future explores Australia's unique predator communities from pre-historic, historic and current perspectives. It covers mammalian, reptilian and avian carnivores, both native and introduced to Australia. It also examines the debate surrounding how best to manage predators to protect livestock and native biodiversity. Readers will benefit from the most up-to-date synthesis by leading researchers and managers in the field of carnivore biology. By emphasising Australian carnivores as exemplars of flesh-eaters in other parts of the world, this book will be an important reference for researchers, wildlife managers and students worldwide.

This second edition of Australian Bird Names is a completely updated checklist of Australian birds and the meanings behind their common and scientific names, which may be useful, useless or downright misleading! For each species, the authors examine the many-and-varied common names and full scientific name, with derivation, translation and a guide to pronunciation. Stories behind the name are included, as well as relevant aspects of biology, conservation and history. Original descriptions, translated by the authors, have been sourced for many species. As well as being a book about names, this is a book about the history of the ever-developing understanding of birds, about the people who contributed to this understanding and, most of all, about the birds themselves. This second edition has been revised to follow current taxonomy and understanding of the relationships between families, genera and species. It contains new taxa, updated text and new vagrants and will be interesting reading for anyone with a love of birds, words or the history of Australian biology and bird-watching.