Lynx Edicions - What Next ?

Everyone knows the high-quality book series of Handbook of the Birds of the World (HBW) and Handbook of the Mammals of the World (HMW) by Lynx Edicions.

I do hope, most members here will agree with me that there's a whole Natural World out there besides birds, birds and every time birds !

Having said that, i think Lynx Edicions should now think outside the box and should start a new series on other natural creatures or in other words other natural wonders.

Starting with,

Handbook of the Amphibians of the World (HAW) - Approximately 8,000 species !
Handbook of the Reptiles of the World (HRW) - Approximately 11,000 species !
Handbook of the Fishes of the World (HFW) - Approximately 35,000 species !

Handbook of the Invertebrates (Arachnids & Insects) of the World (HIW) - over 1 million species described so far !

And also, as many people may have missed in their latest Mammals of the World Checklist ,

Handbook of the Domesticated Mammals of the World (HDMW)

for example, there are at least 305 breeds of domestic rabbit, 400 different breeds of horse and many other Domesticated Mammals...

Just wondering, what next project series members here are interested more...

 

I´m not sure if would be enough potential buyers for those books. Maybe for a checklist or a book similar to the "All the birds of the world", but I´m afraid a whole Handbook series would be a too high investiment. Herps and fishes don´t have so many enthusiasts as birds or mammals.

 

Perhaps some of these books could work if the details about each family were reduced. Many species are very poorly known, so species accounts would be relatively short.

 

It would be an even worse problem with insects

 

An alternative idea would be to bring out books covering current species and then bring out occasional books covering new species every few species.

 

I have a feeling that in a decade, they will start issuing new edition of the Handbook of the Birds of the World. The new markets and the new generation Birders and conservationists could justify such publication. Not to mention the fact, that the natural history bookworms will buy the second edition regardless having the first one or not. All the Birds of the World was a smart move to present their brand to a larger public.

Ron Nowak, the editor of Walker’s Mammals of the World: Monotremes, Marsupials, Afrotherians, Xenarthrans, and Sundatherians announced in the Mammal watching forum last week, that the book was failure, partly because people showed little enthusiasm for an incomplete coverage of the world’s mammals. If Walker’s Mammals of the World will be discontinued, the new edition of Handbook of the Mammals of the World can appear sooner than later.

 

It's a shame about the 'Walker's Mammals of the World'. I obtained all editions of the book, although I felt that the Walker’s Mammals of the World: Monotremes, Marsupials, Afrotherians, Xenarthrans, and Sundatherians moved away from the original concept, where all genera were treated relatively equally. Having several pages on Asiatic and African elephants seemed to be excessive, especially as enthusiasts of these species can find information easily on-line. I wondered if future volumes would have done the same thing, making the series over-long and expensive.

 

The next volume would have been very interesting: a species-by-species account of the order Primates. I also hoped for a future Ungulate volume with revised taxonomy.

 

I liked the first few editions of Walkers as so much space was devoted to bats and rodents. I have books where more pages are devoted to elephants than to bats

 

I beg to differ. Governments, researchers, and academia could also benefit from these handbooks. And there are a lot of fans of herps.

Also I have a fish nerd friend who dreams of a book as extensive as hbw on fishes.

 

Domestics would be impossible, IMO. There is too much variance in what constitutes a breed (it varies wildly by species), names, breed info, etc. It's impossible to do even a basic dog or horse encyclopedia without a bunch of controversies. Then you add in things like new mice and rat colors are discovered several times a year, hybrids in some species, what constitutes a domestic bird...

 

I agree on the format of Walker's. The earlier editions worked really well for presenting the diversity of mammals in a compact but balanced and informative format. Rather than adding lots of text, I think the update would have been better served to keep the scope of the previous editions' text entries and focus on updating photos and species content while perhaps adding range maps and body size information for species.

 

I would love to see handbooks on reptiles, amphibians and especially fish. Not so sure about how my bank account would feel.

 

The two editions of Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia included volumes about reptiles, amphibians and fish. You also may like to download this resource on reptiles: Grzimek's Student Animal Life Resource - Reptiles | Catherine Allen | download.

 

Here is a very interesting story on how it all started :

La historia de la guía de aves más bella del mundo

Using Google Translate, some paragraphs (about history of HBW) reads something like this:

"Before embarking on this project, Sargatal, together with Josep del Hoyo, visited various publishing houses to propose the publication of the encyclopedia. The answer was always the same -A 16-volume bird encyclopedia in English? Already… The answers avoided putting qualifiers, probably because the interlocutors had to think that the word "madness" was not very descriptive; that did not realize the size of the proposed daring. They even went to a very important English publisher. "If this has not been done by an Englishman, it is impossible"; They told them.

Sargatal and Del Hoyo stared at each other with a single thought: the same. And so the idea of promoting this encyclopedic guide came to mind, although there was a downside: they didn't have the money for it. Sargatal was at that time director of the Aiguamolls de l'Empordà natural park, and he knew the lawyer Ramon Mascort, who had bought some land to create a campsite in the area. - I called him and in 15 days he put the money to create the publishing house - explains Sargatal. The creation of the publishing house was previously gestated in long conversations with Josep del Hoyo, who convinced Sargatal that they should make the book. It was he who made contact with Ramon Mascort.

“On the first day Mascort put on the table the money necessary to create the Lynx publishing house, knowing that he would never get it back. It was 1989, and it was a lot of money. The agreement was that he would be the main owner of the shares and we, that is, Josep del Hoyo and I, would also have a stake. Mascort, therefore, is the businessman who puts the money to make Lynx Ediciones work and who has made it possible to make this manual so famous and fantastic ”


So, basically they off course had a real passion on making something extra ordinary but "they didn't have the money for it" was the real issue back then.

Even today, i am 100% sure if Lynx Edicions approaches to any ultra-wealthy individual or a billionaire who shares the passion of natural world along with its conservation, then the works like, Handbook of the Amphibians of the World (HAW), Handbook of the Reptiles of the World (HRW), Handbook of the Fishes of the World (HFW), Handbook of the Invertebrates (Arachnids & Insects) of the World (HIW) and so on is something which is quite possible and i am again 100% sure Lynx Edicions itself has a same vision and passion today, as much as it was back then.

Its all about marketing and how Lynx Edicions approaches to any ultra-wealthy individual or any organization, like, Amancio Ortega Foundation with their vision for future.

Also, just like Lynx Edicions has worked together with Birdlife International, Fundació Mascort and Global Wildlife Conservation for their HBW and HMW series, then can also share similar partnership with organizations like, Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, Amphibian Survival Alliance (ASA) and similar others.

For, Handbook of the Fishes of the World (HFW), they can have partnership with Professor Guillermo Orti :

Team of researchers to classify 35,000 species of fish

Or with some ocean conservation organizations.

For, Handbook of the Invertebrates (Arachnids & Insects) of the World (HIW), there are many invertebrate conservation organizations who would love to support these extra ordinary works.

Who would have thought some 30 years ago that in 2020 there would be a single book with a title "All the Birds of the World" that will for the first time in history of book publishing will be describing and illustrating every single species of bird present in our world in a single volume ? !!!

Just considering the extra ordinary story of HBW, we can conclude that if you have a real passion and a vision, Nothing is Impossible !

 

Lynx edicions announced in FB their new forthcoming project: Paleoart Bird Book.

 

We need a Extinct Mammals of the World and Toni Llobet or Mauricio Anton to do the artwork!

 

The fact that they omitted the extinct mammals illustrations in the Checklist makes me feel that this is coming. Maybe not from Toni Lobet, but perhaps from Ilian Velikov? Toni Lobet's extinct marsupials drawings in Volume 5 are dream, tho!

 

The name of the forthcoming title is “Birds of the Mesozoic: An Illustrated Field Guide” by Juan Benito and Roc Olivé. Due Summer 2022.



"... This comprehensive and up to date illustrated field guide, by palaeontologist Juan Benito and palaeoartist Roc Olivé, aims to illustrate in unprecedented detail the staggering diversity of avialans (modern birds and their closest fossil relatives) that lived from the origin of the group until the Mass Extinction that ended the reign of the non-avian dinosaurs 66 million years ago: the Birds of the Mesozoic.
This beautifully illustrated field guide includes over 250 full-colour illustrations covering more than 200 types of bird that populated the world during the Mesozoic Era. In addition to detailed fact files on the diverse avifauna of the Mesozoic, including a description of each species, with information on its name, location, size, period, habitat, and general characteristics, this guide also seeks to explain the origins of the group and their evolution from other feathered dinosaurs up to the origins of modern birds in the Late Cretaceous. It also covers in detail multiple facets of their phylogenetic, morphological, and ecological diversity, and provides an introduction to bird skeletal anatomy and several of the most recent and cutting-edge methods palaeontologists use to reconstruct fossil bird colour, diet, and biology.
Easy-to-use and pleasant to contemplate, this book is a must for both bird and palaeontology enthusiasts!....". FB