AVIAN MALARIA IN THE ASIAN TROPICAL SUBREGION

Marshall Lairds Avian Malaria In The Asian Tropical Subregion will be only the second book to be devoted solely to the species of Plasmodium parasitising birds. The first, Redginal Hewitts Bird Malaria, Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Press, appeared in 1940, and was largely devoted to relevant laboratory investigations. A number of additional species of these parasites had been described by 1966, when the late Professor Cyril Garnhams classic Malaria Parasites And Other Haemosporidia was published (Blackwell, Oxford), eight of the fifty chapters of which concerned the true avian malaria parasites and have since remained the standard reference. The present book is particularly timely in bringing the whole subject up to date for a huge tropical part of the globe, which is at the same time at the heart of a widespread network of migratory bird species; many of which it demonstrates to carry important species of plasmodia in their blood. The authors findings, which demonstrate the presence of most of the valid species of bird malaria parasites and a single highly distinct new one in the Asian Tropical Subregion and its eastern and western borders, will serve as a source for the sure identification of these; illustrated as it is by high quality photomicrographs from many of the 536 individual birds of 180 species found Pl - +ve, thanks to MAPS.