Resources – Books

There are plenty of field guides for eastern and southern Africa. Many however cover only the large mammals. If you are interested in the small stuff too then the following are pretty good.

Kingdon, Jonathan, The Kingdon Field Guid to African Mammals, A&C Black. The most comprehensive field guide-sized book I’ve seen. All sub-saharan mammals get a mention, many are beautifully illustrated.

East Africa

The Lonely Planet’s Watching Wildlife East Africa book was not a lot of use for Rwanda at least. It was out of date and most of the information for Rwanda seemed to me to have been lifted from other publications, rather than based on original work. Perhaps it is better for some of the other countries it covers including Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. The LP guide to Southern Africa (see below) was much better.

Kingdon, Jonathan. East African Mammals. The University of Chicago Press. Printed in the 1970s, this set of books covers all of East Africa’s mammals. I have just volumes IIA and IIB which cover bats, shrews and hares and rodents (which covers the most diffficult genera to identify). I have not used it a lot but it is beautifully illustrated.

Southern Africa

Apps, Peter (Ed.), Smithers’ Mammals of Southern Africa: A Field Guide, Struik. Includes illustrations and information about southern Africa’s (Zimbabwe and south) larger mammals and many of the small ones too.

Smithers, Reay H.N. 1983. The Mammals of the Southern African Subregion, University of Pretoria, South Africa. This was recommended to me as follows “not exactly a field guide (it’s bulky and has more b&w illustrations than colour plates), but it’s full of information about each species, including lists of colloquial names, taxonomic notes, descriptions of live animals, descriptions of skulls, and notes on distribution & habitat, behaviour, food & reproduction. It covers everything from shrews to elephants. ”

Mills, G. and Hes, L. 1997. The Complete Book of Southern African Mammals. Struik Winchester. More of a coffee table book than a field guide, but wonderful pictures and detailed information on every species in the region.

Stuart, Chris and Tilde, Field Guide to the Mammals of Southern Africa, New Holland. Comprehensive photo guide to the mammals of Zimbabwe southwards.

Taylor, Peter John. 2000. Bats of Southern Africa. University of Natal Press. A small but very useful guide to all of Southern Africa’s bats.

The Lonely Planet’s Watching Wildlife Southern Africa book was an invaluable source of information when I visited South Africa. I have no reason to doubt the information it has for Botswana, Namibia, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia is any less accurate.

Resources – Websites

African Bats aims to collate and disseminate information, resources and tools to assist with the conservation of Africa’s bat diversity. Their African Chiroptera Report looks a comprehensive synthesis of published data on African bats including distribution maps. The appendices include transcripts of several published bat keys and echolocation information.

Photographic Maps of the Primates, Warthogs, Dik-Diks and Hyrax of Africa: A Tool for Identification and Conservation. A useful resource which will hopefully expand.