Vanishing: The World's Most Vulnerable Animals

Mostly gorgeous photography. I say mostly because I don't think all creepy crawlies are aesthetically pleasing, but still appreciate their biodiversity. While looking at these beautiful, exotic animals I felt pangs of sadness and guilt mix with awe and wonder. I like the artistic choice of having a completely white or black background, but sometimes it was difficult to get a sense of scale of the animal or insect, yet a few times the creature was photographed perched on someone's thumbnail or otherwise being held so you knew its size relative to human hands. One butterfly is photographed as being in a small container, like one might have as a to-go sauce container.

The titicaca water frog stuck with me as it has folds in its skin to help it get oxygen for it lives high up in the Andes mountains.

Sometimes I found myself mad at ‘Chinese medicine' as it was listed as one of the reasons for some species' endangered status, such as for pangolins, some wild cats, and a species of seahorse. However, other reasons such as deforestation, pollution, mining, and the harvesting of palm oil and other resources are also causes, causes that I -inadvertently- contribute to.

I do not recall seeing the brown pelican photographed. I am a UCSC alum and did see a brown pelican while at Santa Cruz. They were at a time endangered, but have since increased their numbers.

At the end of the book the photographer gave a brief behind the scenes look at his process. I appreciated that he kept the animal's comfort as the priority, choosing to edit out dropped feathers, dirt, waste. He commented that once the orangutan understood she was having her photo taken that ‘she leaned into it'.