Any book that declares itself to be ‘A complete guide to’ any subject or area is asking for pedants to sift through it, to find reasons why that claim cannot be so. Yet Richard Sale does his best to encompass all aspects of Arctic wildlife, even including short sections on regional geology, climate, and humans in his introductory material. The result is a beautifully produced book, printed on high-quality paper that enhances the many superb illustrations. It is perhaps a little heavy to fit in a pocket when used as a field guide, but this must be balanced against the fact that it covers a vast geographical area, and it is ‘complete’ enough to cater to the needs of the average, non-specialist Arctic visitor. In this respect, it is comparable to Hadoram Shirihai's The complete guide to Antarctic wildlife.

The book comprises five sections. The first is an introduction, in which the Arctic is defined, and brief notes are given on the region's geological structure, snow and ice, glacial landforms, climate, human history and activity, range of habitats available for wildlife, speciation and biogeography, and how various organisms have adapted to life in the cold. The section concludes with an essay entitled ‘The fragile Arctic,’ in which the author highlights various subjects for concern in the region—airborne pollution, the exploitation of minerals and fossil fuels, ozone depletion, over-fishing, whaling, logging, and climate change.

The second section explains how to use the field guide. Rough references are provided (including specified editions), so serious bird enthusiasts can check Sale's claims for taxonomy and geographical variation. However, these references are given as simply ‘Clements (6th edition)’ and ‘Howard and Moore (3rd edition),’ with no titles, full author names, or publication details, and there is no reference or reading list. To the casual reader, who is unfamiliar with these tomes and who may wish to consult them, this may prove to be frustrating.

The third and by far the largest section is the ‘Field guide to Arctic birds.’ Most entries are accompanied by excellent photographs, and each section (divers and grebes, geese, raptors, etc) has a colour plate representing each nominate race. The fourth section is the ‘Field guide to Arctic mammals,’ and includes shrews, rodents, lagomorphs, ungulates, carnivores, pinnipeds, and cetaceans. The final and fifth section is entitled ‘A visitor's guide to the Arctic,’ and provides a very brief description of specific areas—for example, Jan Mayen, Bear Island (Bjørnøya), Russia, and Canada. The information is brief enough to be unhelpful, and a list of further reading would not have gone amiss. There is a three-page index, which is short for a book in excess of 460 pages, and the reader can look up ‘walrus’ but not ‘hooded seal’ (which is under ‘seal’).

Each entry begins with a description of pelage or plumage (‘identification’), a list of species with which the animal may be confused (‘confusion species’), body size, ‘voice’ (birds) or ‘communication’ (mammals), distribution (illustrated with a small map for easy reference), diet, breeding habits, and taxonomy and geographical variation. There are a few annoyances. First, all the distribution maps include a blank-white part, indicating ‘areas of permanently frozen sea’ (see page 54). In the section on marine mammals, this implies these animals are never found in leads, polynias, or in the pack ice at all, which is misleading. Secondly, the bird section uses orange shading to illustrate distribution, but some orange is two-tone (see, for example, the entry for the short-eared owl on pages 285–286, where Alaska and parts of Norway are lighter). Is this deliberate, or an eccentricity of printing? The same is true in the chapter on marine mammals, where two shades of pink are used (see, for example, the entry for the bearded seal on page 421). And the cetacean chapter does not have a diagram showing comparative fin shapes, blows, and other characters traditionally used for identifying whales at a distance. As anyone who has engaged in whale-watching will know, these animals rarely oblige with a complete showing of themselves, so knowing that fin whales have a pale ventral area is not always a practical diagnostic tool. This omission reduces the book's usefulness as a field guide for whales.

Finally, there are one or two small errors of fact. For example, the lowest temperature ever recorded in the Antarctic was –89.6°C (Clarkson Reference Clarkson and Riffenburgh2006), not –88°C as stated on page 19, and katabatic winds are not restricted to the polar regions, as stated on page 20. Nevertheless, Sale should be commended for his work, and A complete guide to Arctic wildlife will be a welcome edition to the bookshelves of any collector of polar books.