Commentaire descriptif

In both visuals and layout, this large-size, fully illustrated volume recalls the nineteenth century’s fascination with collections, display and the categorization of Earth’s animal wonders. “Welcome to the Museum, Enter Here.” As the subtitle implies, this book offers illustrated arrays of the world’s animals, from invertebrate to mammal, according to Darwin’s “Tree of Animal Life” (as illustrated in an introductory double-page spread). Brief texts discuss genera and species (under “Reptile”: “There are around 3,400 species of snake, and they can be found on every continent except for Antarctica”). Captions offer detailed information on creatures within a given species (“Blood Python”: When incubating her eggs the female coils around them and shivers to keep them warm”). Beautifully rendered full-colour illustrations also include an anatomical cutaway of “ray finned” fish (” nearly 99 percent of all species of fish”), the life cycle of frogs (from spawn to adult) and stylized displays representing habitats, such as the coral reef (“support around 25 percent of all marine species. The majority… are found in a wide band around the equator”) and the rainforest (“thought to contain more than half the world’s plant and animal species”). Back material includes an index of all the animals depicted. A fascinating preface discusses biodiversity and the critical web of life that sustains our planet’s environment.