Wild New World - Hardcover

Barton, Miles; Bean, Nigel; Dunleavy, Stephen; Gray, Ian; White, Adam

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0563534257 ISBN 13: 9780563534259

Publisher: BBC Books, 2002

Synopsis

From the icy Arctic wastes of Alaska to the tropical swamps of Florida, North America is home to an amazingly rich diversity of wildlife. Yet when humans first entered the continent at the end of the last Ice Age 13,000 years ago, they would have encountered many more fascinating and bizarre creatures, such as ground sloths and glyptodonts, mastodons and mammoths. When you add to this list camels and horses, sabre and scimitar-toothed cats, dire wolves, lions and cheetahs, it is no wonder that Ice-Age North America has been described as an American Serengeti, teeming with a variety of large mammals that rivals the East African plains of today. Wild New World takes us on a captivating journey back in time to follow in the footsteps of those first Americans. Moving across this vast continent region by region, present-day animals are studied for insights into older, now extinct beasts. A wealth of fossil evidence on the continent's prehistoric wildlife has provided intriguing clues to the past, and with modern computer techniques it is now possible to flesh out those bones, put fur on them and bring them back to life. A series of stunning computer-generated panoramas creates a vivid picture of what this ancient landscape was like, which animals were present and how they lived and died.

About this title

Product Description

Published In 2002 : 1st. Edition : BBC Books : Large Format & Quite Heavy : Light To Faint Face Rubbing To The Dust Wrapper : Otherwise , As New Throughout : Overall , A Very Nice Natural History Book :

Review

The subtitle of Wild New World, a BBC publication that accompanies the television series, is Recreating Ice-Age North America. It tells the remarkable story of the changing environments and life of North America during the last gasp of the Quaternary Ice Ages and beautifully illustrates it with plenty of wonderful images.

Some 20,000 years ago the continent was in the grips of the last great Ice Age with most of Canada covered by a huge ice sheet--even Florida was on the decidedly cool side. The only advantage of the deep-freeze was that animals could wander from Asia into North America without getting their feet wet. So much ocean water was locked up in ice that sea level fell drastically and opened the Bering "highway" from Siberia to Alaska. Without this connection life would have been very different in the Americas. It might also have been very different if humans had not also managed to make the crossing just before sea levels rose again and cut the continent off.

Recreating Ice-Age North America is authored by the Wild New World team of BBC producers Miles Barton, Nigel Bean, Stephen Dunleavy, Ian Gray and Adam White, all of whom are science graduates and know their stuff. How the vast continent of North America came to be the equivalent of an Ice Age game park is a wonderful story. It's full of impressive beasts--huge herds of mammoth, bison, caribou, horse and the top carnivores that predated upon them, the big cats and then humans. The major players are given their own profiles and vital statistics. All are illustrated with computer-graphic reconstructions set in real landscapes that look a lot better in the book's still photos than as the slightly stilted moving images on TV. The big question in the history of North America's big game is did they fall because of changing climate and environments at the end of the Ice Age or were they pushed by the hand of man? With Wild New World: Recreating Ice-Age North America, a more accurate picture the wildlife and landscape of North America as it would have looked over 13,000 years ago will be revealed. --Douglas Palmer

About this edition

• Publisher: BBC Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0563534257
• ISBN 13: 9780563534259
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192