The Big Cats: The Paintings of Guy Coheleach

This is a beautiful book that is now out of print. If you like big cats you'll like looking at the amazing work by Guy Coheleach. If you don't own it already you'll have to buy it used. Try and find a good copy and enjoy. I did.

This book is a large format - approximately 12" x 12" - heavily illustrated book in the genre commonly called "coffee table books". It goes beyond most such books, though, in having text that is even more compelling than the illustrations.The book includes chapters on each of today's large predatory cats - puma, jaguar, leopard, lion, tiger, cheetah, snow leopard, and clouded leopard. Each chapter includes many illustrations by Guy Coheleach; most are full color paintings, though there are also many black and white sketches.The paintings are detailed and beautiful, but I found Nancy Neff's text to be even more valuable. Each chapter provides information on the physical characteristics, fossil history, and behavior of the species, along with information on its current status and how it got there; in addition to the pictorial illustrations, there are very nice diagrams that illustrate the text. In addition, there is a table at the beginning of every chapter giving some relevant statistics, along with a map showing the current and historical distribution of the species and its subspecies. I particularly liked the fact that much of the information is presented in a consistent way across all the species, so I can, for example, compare the length of a jaguar to that of a tiger without fearing that this information might have been omitted for one or the other species.The 244 page text, also includes excellent introductory chapters covering general topics such as the evolutionary history of the cats. At the end of the book, there's a brief explanation of biological nomenclature, and a glossary, bibliography, and index, as befits a scholarly work. This book may eventually be displaced from your coffee table, but it will remain a treasured reference on your bookshelf for a long time.