Handbook of the Mammals of the World

Thanks for the clarifacation guys.
Dean

 

Thanks Hix

I found out about Walker's in the 1970s, when I visited the Mammal Library in the Natural History Museum to do some work on the Octodontidae. I liked the way that Ernest P. Walker had tried to get at least one picture of a representative of each genus. Over the years, there are few genera that were not represnted by pictures. If you're a mammal geek, try Mammal Planet (Welcome to Mammals' Planet | Mammals'Planet) for pictures of many mammal species. I have got each of the 6 editions of Walker's Mammals of the World. The last one was published in 1999, but has been superceded by paperback versions of various groups of mammals e.g. marsupials, carnivores, primates and bats. One of the things I like about Walker's is that it is not afraid to devote a lot of space to rodents and bats. Later editions have detailed accounts of species of cats and some other more familiar species, but there is still much space devoted to obscure genera of species.
I also have copies of various editions of David Macdonald's Encyclopaedia of Mammals, but I find it very lopsided. In the first edition, the first volume dealt mainly with carnivores, primates and whales and everything else was crammed into the second volume.
The Handbook of Birds of the World has been fairer as it has given a lot of space to each bird family. The Handbook of Mammals of the World seems to have fallen into a similar trap to the Encyclopaedia of Mammals. The popular mammals are getting a lot of space. One book for carnivores, one for hoofed mammals, one for primates and one for sea mammals. I'm pleased that the marsupials are getting a volume, but I wonder how much space some of the other mammals will get. I imagine that several pages will be devoted to beavers and some of the other popular species of rodents, but that some species will be represented by little more than a small sketch, a limited description, a few measurements and the countries where they live. I hope I'm wrong about this.
As some other Zoochatters have said, the structure of the volumes is already outdated. The pinnipeds should, and could, have been included in the carnivore volume, possibly along with the pangolins. Likewise, the whales should have been included with the hoofed mammals. The aardvark, elephants and hyraxes (Hoofed Mammals) and sirenians (Sea Mammals) should be in the same volume along with tenrecs, golden moles, elephant shrews and xenarthrans, which I can only guess will be in Volume 7. I don't think it can be that difficult to change the contents of some volumes, especially as the basic change in classification predates the publication of Volume 1. As there are relatively few species of pinnipeds, it wouldn't have been difficult to add them to Volume 1. Similarly Volume 2 could have included the whales or the volume on primates could have preceded the volume on hoofed mammals. I just hope that marsupials are classified in several orders, rather than just dumping them in the Marsupialia, which was one of the let downs of the Dorling Kindersley Handbook on Mammals

 

There's no pretence that the arrangement of families between volumes is strictly taxonomic - it just gives a roughly even split without dividing any major orders between volumes so cannot be called 'outdated' as such. The only exception is including pinnipeds in Sea Mammals - and I'm sure the taxonomy of the pinnipeds in that volume will be perfectly up-to-date - and it gives that volume an extra saleability for marine-mammal-only fans. Ungulates and cetaceans in the same volume would have been a huge book or both would have been condensed down greatly.

I expect the rodents volume to follow the same pattern as every other volume of HBW and HMW with in-depth coverage of all families and as much information about each species as can be crammed in (so long as the information is available) - why wouldn't it? There will be whole volumes devoted to rodents and bats - I don't think there's any reason to think they'll be short-changed.

 

Have just been advised that publication has been delayed until March 2013.



Hix

 

Hopefully to redo that art work.

 

That would be good.

I'm glad they have extended the pre-publication offer to end of February 2013 too. Can't actually afford it at the moment.

 

My copy worked out at £103 after conversion and if it's even nearly as good as the other volumes it's worth every penny.

Even if it has had to be hastily reclassified from 'Christmas present' to 'birthday present'.

 

Whereas I can understand the high price of the book, an awful lot of people who would be very interested in it simply cannot justify paying over £100 for a book, and given the way taxonomy changes so often then it's a book that will become outdated quite quickly.

It does often seem like zoology is restriced these days to those from an educated middle-class that can afford to enjoy it, with most half-decent zoology books costing way over the price of a normal hardback.

 

There is no way I could get away with spending that much on a book, as much as I would love to! £130 works out at around half a weeks wages and that is a phenomenal amount to spend on a book that will, as you say, be out of date within a year or two.
An unexpected windfall is the only way I'll get away with buying these books, no matter how great they are.

 

I do understand the situation. All my HMW/HBW books have been acquired by judicious manipulation of Xmas/birthday present allocations - I would also struggle to justify them from 'normal' budgets - and indeed I've stopped after vol 2 of HBW and am now waiting for the forthcoming 'plates only' volumes of that series (though I may cherry-pick the odd family in due course).

These books are a cut above though - the depth of information is incredible and the price, while high, is not excessive for what you get (unlike a lot of the more glossy animal photo books out there).

 

I do understand it is good value, having seen a physical copy in a zoo library - hopefully one day I will have enough to justify it.

Talking of paying a bit more than I normally would for a book, I bought 'Birds of East Africa' by Terry Stevenson and John Fanshawe yesterday from Martin Mere for £30. I don't know when I'll ever use it, but it is very interesting and it's a nice addition to my bookshelf, which doesn't have anything remotely like it on it yet [it is mostly books accompanying TV series such as D. Attenbourgh and 'Last Chance to See,' as well as some of the natural history books from the Works that have been picked up cheaply

 

I wish that could get presents of that price and callibre for Christmas and my birthday. Yet again I envy you Maguari!
HMW does look amazing, I do own a few of the aforementioned "glossy photo books" and they really cannot compete with what I've seen with this series.

 

And now time some shameless tooting of one's own horn:

My first and so far only published photograph is featured in HMW Vol II. It is the only photo of a Royal Antelope in the book and it's on page 454. It's not even my best Royal Antelope photo, but they chose it because it displayed the way they lift their legs when they walk. I was a bit lucky considering they predominantly use photographs of animals taken in the wild.

I'll never forget the moment I found out. I was coming home from a deciding loss in a Yankees playoff game (Game 5 against the Detroit Tigers, in October 2011). For a huge Yankees fan, the long ride home was especially depressing. It was close to 3am when I finally got home and saw the package (I had gone straight from work to the game). I had been waiting weeks for the book to finally arrive from Europe after seeing many people on here already had their copy. I'm flipping through the book when I suddenly see a photo that looks very familiar, I rub my eyes and look closely at the credit and see my full name! It was so surreal! Were my brain/eyes gaining up to play a cruel trick on me at 3am? Nope! That was my photo!

A year earlier I had submitted 90 or so photos to them as soon as I found out about the series. The only part of the book they were still accepting photos of was Bovidae, which happens to be my all time favorite group of mammals! But I had never heard back whether or not they accepted any of my photos. I eventually heard from them after the book came out, but I really didn't mind the delay because it was the best surprise possible!

Funny part is, Royal Antelope were the first animal I had photos of that I thought books could use. Royal Antelopes were hardly, if ever represented by photograph. Any animal books I ever had always featured drawings of the species. Turns out I was right!

So just wanted to share that with all of you, it's something I'm really proud of.

 

I did buy the book first, and then got a second copy (for my parents) for using the photo. My name's on that website you linked- Alexander F. Meyer. It took them forever to update that page for Vol. II.

 

It's not the HMW, but recently there was an article published on HMW II and Ungulate Taxonomy (a book I do not like at all....). It is named "Are there really twice as many bovid species as we thought?".

And it deals with the species concept used in UA and how it was implemented in HMW. That the bovid family taxonomy was completely similar to the (imo very weak) proposed taxonomy, but the rest of the families had still the usual taxonomy. It also discusses species concepts and consequences of "species inflation".

for those who are interested:
Are there really twice as many bovid species as we thought?

 

Thanks, Lintworm

I've read the article and I must admit that it can be confusing to determine if the varieties of a species are really separate subspecies or species. I have got books that suggest there were several species of brown bear, while others wonder if the polar bear is really a subspecies of brown bear. I know some people are lumpers or splitters and there are problems with consistency, but I agree it does create problems with conservation, as a relatively abundant species with a wide range could become several threatened species with limited ranges.

 

So their website says that Vol. 3 is "Shipping in April"

It's April! So anyone have any word on when exactly it will arrive? Did anyone get their copy yet?