Shortlisted for WHSmith Book Awards (General Knowledge) 2002.

David Burnie, Editor-in-Chief has written over 75 nature books and scripted a number of natural history television documentaries for the BBC and other wildlife productions, such as Survival School and Wild Islands. He has won numerous awards including the Science Book Prize for his book How Nature Works.

Part 1 Habitats: grassland and savanna; deserts; tropical forests; temperate forests; coniferous forests; mountains; polar regions; rivers, lakes and wetlands; coasts and coral reefs; oceans; urban areas. Part 2 The animal kingdom: mammals - egg-laying mammals, marsupials, insectivores, bats, flying lemurs, elephant shrews, tree shrews, primates, anteaters and relatives, pangolins, rabbits and hares, rodents, whales, dolphins and porpoises, carnivores, elephants, aardvark, hyraxes, sea cows, hoofed animals; birds - ostrich, rheas, cassowaries and emus, kiwis, tinamous, penguins, divers, grebes, albatrosses and petrels, pelicans and relatives, herons and relatives, flamingos, waterfowl, birds of prey, gamebirds, crane and relatives, waders and shorebirds, pigeons, sandgrouse, parrots, cuckoos and turacos, owls, nightjars and frogmouths, hummingbirds and swifts, mousebirds, trogons, kingfishers and relatives, toucans and woodpeckers, passerines; reptiles - tortoises and turtles, tuataras, snakes, lizards, amphisbaenians, crocodiles and alligators; amphibians - salamanders and newts, caecilians, frogs and toads; fish - jawless fish, cartilaginous fish, bony fish; invertebrates - sponges, cnidarians, flatworms, roundworms, segmented worms, minor invertebrate groups, molluscs, arthropods, echinoderms, invertebrate chordates.