Summary

From space, Africa is a shattered land, textured by burning sands, seas of grass and steaming forests.

From space, Africa is a shattered land, textured by burning sands, seas of grass and steaming forests. It is scarred by mountains and bejewelled by great lakes and rivers. This ancient continent is also alive with some of the greatest wildlife on Earth. The book covers the fragmented areas of Africa: the jungle, the mountains, the savannah, the rivers and lakes, the coasts, and the deserts. It shows how a once stable continent has been fragmented and how this process has catalyzed the evolution of some remarkable animals and plants. In the savannah, carnivorous ants consume as much meat as lions, while in the jungle, where light barely penetrates the lef canopy, there are diminutuve forms of familiar animals - pygmy chimpanzees, forest elephants and dwarf hippos.