Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

Peter Menkhorst

Peter Menkhorst

Peter Menkhorst is a zoologist with the Victorian Government’s Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental Research where he works on a broad range of fauna conservation issues. He has produced field guides to both the mammals and the birds of Australia, most recently The Australian Bird Guide (CSIRO Publishing, 2017).

Peter Menkhorst reviews 'Starvation in a Land of Plenty: Wills’ diary of the fateful Burke and Wills expedition' by Michael Cathcart

January-February 2015, no. 368 01 January 2015
The white explorers who first penetrated the interior of this continent were exceptional men. White Australians of the time considered them heroes, performing an essential role in identifying opportunities for exploitation, settlement, and commerce. Mostly, the explorers were heroic – determined, tough, single-minded, and stoic in the face of enormous hardship. They also needed bushcraft, that e ... (read more)

Peter Menkhorst reviews 'Where Song Began: Australia's birds and how they changed the world' by Tim Low

November 2014, no. 366 01 November 2014
Australia’s birds stand out from the global avian pack in many ways – ecologically, behaviourally, because some ancient lineages survive here, and because many species are endemic. The ancestors of more than half of the planet’s ten thousand bird species (the songbirds) evolved right here (eastern Gondwana) before spreading across the world. Indeed, Tim Low claims in this important and illum ... (read more)

Peter Menkhorst reviews 'Curious Minds' by Peter Macinnis

December 2012–January 2013, no. 347 25 November 2012
Curious Minds sets out to explore the naturalists and scientists who brought Australia’s flora and fauna into the public consciousness: on the face of it a laudable aim, but one not totally fulfilled. From the title onwards the book seems confused in its aims and in its style. Is the book intended to be about people (the curious naturalists), flora and fauna (their discoveries), or both? Does it ... (read more)

Peter Menkhorst reviews 'Sentinel Chickens: What Birds Tell Us about Our Health and the World' by Peter Doherty

October 2012, no. 345 25 September 2012
Why would a famous virologist and immunologist (and Nobel laureate) write a book linking birds, human diseases, and ecological degradation? The answer is partly that Peter Doherty obviously has a soft spot for birds and birdwatching. He argues that anyone with an enquiring mind and a natural history bent cannot fail to notice birds and to be intrigued by them. But the full answer is that Doherty i ... (read more)

Peter Menkhorst reviews 'Upside Down World' by Penny Olsen

October 2010, no. 325 01 October 2010
In this age of throwaway digital images it is easy to forget that before the late nineteenth century the only means of conveying a visual image of an object or place was by drawing its likeness. For this reason, well-funded exploratory expeditions often included an artist whose role was to illustrate new and interesting people, landscapes, geological features, animals and plants. Australian exampl ... (read more)

Peter Menkhorst reviews 'Platypus' by Ann Moyal

February 2011, no. 328 01 February 2011
When the first specimen of the Platypus reached Europe in 1798, it was received with incredulity by zoologists. With anatomical and morphological characteristics seemingly belonging to reptiles, birds, and mammals, it simply did not fit into the existing classifications. Further, it appeared to lack mammary glands and therefore could not be classed as a mammal, yet it had obvious mammalian charact ... (read more)
Page 2 of 2