African Wildlife & Environment Issue 83

GOOD READS

shots are provided where the interest of the visitor may be expected to be greater. For example, there are fine images of lions spread over six pages, while elephants likewise get six spreads. The little rodents and bats get scant mention, for they are not easily seen or identified by the average visitor to the KNP. The work of a number of photographers is used in this fine little book. On page 29 there is a stunning action shot of four Spotted Hyaenas in hot pursuit of a panic-stricken lion. The bottom picture on page 31 depicts a Spotted Hyaena in a snout-to-beak standoff with a large vulture… Oops, this is a Rüppell’s Griffon that does not frequent the KNP, and the image was probably taken in East Africa. Editors and proofreaders need to be sharp on details like this, in case the book is reviewed in African Wildlife & Environment !

names, distribution maps or other frills, and the reader will most often flick through the pages to hopefully find a photograph that resembles the critter at hand that requires identification. At the end of the book there is a glossary, picture credits and an index. Keeping the book simple has a few drawbacks. I have always called members of the fly family Bombylidae ‘bee flies’. In this book the top picture on page 81 is a bombylid fly on a flower, here called a ‘needle-nose fly’, while the so-called ‘bee flies’ illustrated on page 82 do not have the long proboscis typical of the Bombylidae. If this is a bit confusing to a retired old entomologist, it must be equally so for some tourist from Ireland. And imagine the bewilderment of a visitor from Germany looking at the impressive photos on page 45 of a ‘king cricket’ (family Stenopalmatidae) identified only as ‘Parktown Prawns’. “What is this town and can you eat this prawn?”, he or she will probably be asking themselves or their fellow travellers. Apart from a few gripes like this, the little book does a good job overall in introducing visitors to the KNP to the many interesting smaller inhabitant of the Park.

Young, Joan ( 2023). Insects and other critters of Kruger. Discover Nature Now Series. Struik Nature, an imprint of Penguin Random House South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Cape Town. Soft cover, 13 x 17 cm, 176 pp, illustrated with colour photographs. ISBN 978-1-7758- 4821 -9. RRP: R230.

Van Wyk Braam, and Piet van Wyk ( 2023). Trees of Kruger. Discover Nature Now Series. Struik Nature, an imprint of Penguin Random House South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Cape Town. Soft cover, 13 x 17 cm, 200 pp, illustrated with colour photographs and maps. ISBN 978 1-7758- 4172 -2. RRP: R230.

This ‘Nature Now’ offering introduces some of the bugs, spiders, scorpions and other ‘creepy crawlies’ found in the Kruger National Park, dealing with 30 groups and some 200 commonly encountered species. The sheer number and variety of insects makes this a daunting task, but the author has done a good job of putting together a very useful guide to the many ‘critters’ that visitors may spot from their vehicles on game drives, or in the rest camps of the KNP. Many insects and other invertebrates are tiny, so this guide deals mainly with the larger and more conspicuous examples As with the mammal book, there are no scientific

Braam is Emeritus Professor of Botany at the University of Pretoria, while the late Piet worked in the Kruger National Park for most of his life. Both have authored many authoritative books on trees, and no better authors could be imagined to put together this fine issue of the ‘Nature Now’

7 | African Wildlife & Environment | Issue 83 (2023)