Geography of New Caledonia a refugium, in effect a biological "Noah's Ark", an island home to both unique living plants and animals and also to its own special fossil endowment. Birds such as the crested and almost flightless kagu (French, "cagou") "Rhynochetos jubatus", whose closest relative may be the distantly related sunbittern of South America, and plants such as "Amborella trichopoda", the only known member of the most basal living branch of flowering plants, make this island a treasure trove and a critical concern for biologists and conservationists. The island was home to horned fossil turtles ("Meiolania mackayi") and terrestrial fossil crocodiles ("Mekosuchus inexpectatus")
Creature Catalogue recommend it. Brinsley felt that organizing the book in sections by type of creature rather than just alphabetically like "AD&D"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s "Monster Manual"s "should certainly make life easier for those DMs who design their own adventures, and know what sort of monster they want, rather than by name". He also felt that the comprehensive references to all the monsters appearing in the "D&D" boxed sets would solve the problem of having to remember in which set a particular monster appears. He concluded the review by stating, "basically, this book contains all you could ever wish to know about monsters in the