Gibson’s World

This year, I have read a lot of books on animals n the places we’ve been, and have seen lots of animals. So far, I’ve read books on animals in Australia, Thailand, Bhutan, India, and New Zealand. They’ve all been interesting, but one of the books I have enjoyed this year is New Zealand Wildlife.

New Zealand Wildlife is a field guide, or a non-fiction reference book, about the birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, fish and invertebrates of New Zealand. I think it was a good book because it described so many different types of animals instead of just birds or just mammals, or just reptiles. The book also good pictures and described the animals well.

My favorite part of the book was the section on reptiles and amphibians. It was really fun to learn about what frogs or lizards we might be able to see on the Milford Track or in the Bay of Islands. I also liked looking through the mammals part, except there were only 34 mammals (just two that are native to New Zealand).

If I could only see one animal in New Zealand, I would probably want to see a tuatara. I learned that tuataras’ fossils have been dated back to 225 million years ago, and they are the only animal today that has survived from the period of dinosaurs. The only problem is that tuataras are very hard to see because they are restricted to some islands off of New Zealand and they’re nocturnal. We did go to one of these islands, but didn’t see a tuatara.

If you are into New Zealand wildlife (not that many people are), you should definitely read New Zealand Wildlife by Terence Lindsey and Rod Norris. It was a really helpful guide for me to use to identify and learn about all of the animals I saw in New Zealand.