DK Natural History: Mammals–Carnivores

DK Natural History: Mammals – Carnivores
From DK Canada

About the Illustrated eBook

This book explores a highly successful group of mammals—the carnivores—in stunning visual detail. A comprehensive introduction places carnivores in the context of other living things, and an extensive catalog showcases the incredible variety of these animals. Every group of carnivores is covered, including dogs, weasels, seals, and civets. Many individual specimens are also profiled, each accompanied by clear, concise text and key data.

More extensive features focus on key species, such as the polar bear and the tiger, and include stunning, specially commissioned photography.  Conceived from the ground up to take advantage of this amazing new technology, DK Natural History: Mammals - Carnivores brings the subject to life like never before, and offers an amazing range of interactive features, including video and interactive galleries.

DK Natural History: Mammals - Carnivores includes:
• 70 interactive and illustrated pages
• Illustrated profiles of nearly 200 individual specimens
• Expanded profiles of key species
• Hundreds of crystal-clear photographs, many specially commissioned
• Key contextual images

DK Natural History: Mammals - Carnivores forms part of an ongoing series that is a landmark in illustrated reference publishing and was authenticated by experts at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. The complete series offers an unrivalled visual survey of Earth’s natural history, giving a clear overview of the natural world with over 6,000 species featured.

My Thoughts

Introducing DK Natural History Mammals Carnivores to an iPad close to you!  DK is exploring new ways to make their books available to everyone.   With the increasing popularity of iPad, they have found a way to transform their books into the digital world.

This fun eBook will help you to discover the carnivores that can be encountered in the wild.   For homeschoolers out there, having books that you can bring while travelling to activities is fantastic.   This definitive visual guide will provide basic information on well know carnivores mammals like

• Dogs, Foxes, & Relatives
• Bears
• Eared Seals
• Earless Seals
• Walruses
• Skunks
• Raccoons & Relatives
• Red Panda, Weasels & Relatives
• Cats
• Hyenas & Aardwolf
• Malagasy carnivores
• Mongooses
• Civets, Genets & Linsangs

Having reviewed numerous DK books in the past, I can tell you that some of them can be quite heavy – especially the ones presenting animals.    Having some of them on a device like the iPad is a bonus as it definitively doesn’t take much space in your luggage when travelling!    Besides, your kids could flip through it and learn about carnivores at the same time.    My son Dominic loves bears.    He was very happy to see that there were pages about them in this eBook.   

One night last summer, as we were at our trailer, my husband opened the door at night to go check something outside.    Before he went down the stairs, he was surprised to see a raccoon just passing by right under them!   It was quite an encounter.    This little raccoon was just scurrying around and was leaving the area.   Apparently, someone also saw a bear close to the dumpster area too!   In all our years at that campground, the only thing we had seen from afar was a skunk.    So having this eBook will allow us to learn more about the animals we might find at the campground and elsewhere around the world (and the zoo!).

Please click on the images below to see sections of the eBook.

My only disappointment is that there is no sound whatsoever on the videos – whether voice or music….   It’s total silence when you watch them.    I find it a bit weird to watch a video with no sound files on it.    I would like to suggest to consider incorporating some music with the videos in the future.  Though the videos are great to discover how fast a wild cat can run to catch a prey and so on.   Each video is quite short as well so it’s not like you will watch for 5 minutes with a sound.

On another note, I also find that the book is a bit slow to load.  Same thing happens when I flip through the pages.   Mind you I have the original version of the iPad which might explain the time delay.   It happened a few time when the ebook crashed when I was going through it.    Again I suspect that this problem might not be frequent if you are using an iPad2 or the New iPad.

This ebook is available for purchase for the price of 4.99$ on iTunes.   However, please note that it is only available for the iPad or your computer with iTunes.

Disclaimer: Thanks to DK Canada for sending me the above mentioned product for review purposes. I was not monetarily compensated for this review. Please note that the review was not influenced by the Sponsor in any way. All opinions expressed here are only my own.