Dinagat Islands hold most of the mineral deposits in the Philippines and have been among the largest mining contributors in the country since 1939. Aside from a massive mining industry, logging is also intensive in this group of islands potentially imperiling its remaining biodiversity. This study primarily aims to determine the species composition of terrestrial vertebrates (amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals) in two study areas categorized as modified habitats (mining area and logging area) in the Dinagat Islands. These wildlife species are important bio-indicators as they show sensitivity of the species to anthropogenic disturbances. Suitable field survey methods were conducted for the taxa established and a quantitative analysis was performed to determine the diversity and similarity of the species between the study areas. A total of 65 species were identified in the two study areas: 33 species were exclusively identified in the mining area, 49 species were exclusively identified in the logging area, and 17 species were found in both study areas. It should be noted that among the 65 species, 41 species are either endemic to Mindanao and/or the Philippines, and two species were endemic to Dinagat Islands. This study also recorded the newly described coral snake endemic to the island, Calliophis salitan Brown, Smart, Leviton and Smith. This study indicates that although Dinagat Islands is modified by anthropogenic activities, the terrestrial vertebrate species are thriving. Intensive survey in other modified habitats in Dinagat Islands is the next-step forward to take into account existing wildlife to improve conservation decisions, planning and management on the islands.

The book by Boris Kryštufek and Georgy I. Shenbrot, published a few weeks ago, is an encyclopaedic masterpiece and up-to-date standard work on the rodent group of Arvicolinae Gray, 1821 (voles and lemmings) belonging to the family Cricetidae Fischer, 1817 (hamsters). The authors are two experts on these mammals, and are known worldwide by scientists working in mammalogy for their publications. In addition to countless individual articles, B. Kryštufek is best known for his monograph on the ‘Mammals of Turkey and Cyprus’, which he published together with Vladimír Vohralík (Kryštufek and Vohralík, 2001; 2005; 2009). Georgy Shenbrot wrote, among many other books and papers, mainly devoted to desert and steppe rodents, ‘An Atlas of the Geographic Distribution of the Arvicoline Rodents’ in co-operation with Boris Krasnov (Shenbrot and Krasnov, 2005). It is certainly no exaggeration to call the present book, reviewed here, a worthy, up-to-date successor to Hinton's classic ‘Monograph of Voles and Lemmings’ (Hinton, 1926) and Gromov and Polyakov's volume on ‘Voles (Microtinae)’ (Gromov and Polyakov, 1977) in the framework of the ‘Fauna SSSR’ series (which actually always represented the entire group worldwide). So, one can say that a fundamental work on voles appears about every 50 years.