Choice - April 2010 Vol. 47 No. 08

CHOICE A publication of the Association of College and Research Libraries
A division of the American Library Association

April 2010 Vol. 47 No. 08

Handbook of the mammals of the world: v.1: Carnivores, ed. by Don E. Wilson and Russell A. Mittermeier with Sue Ruff and Albert Martinez-Vilalta et al.; text by Paolo Cavallini et al. Lynx, 2009. 727p bibl index ISBN 9788496553491, $225.23

This handbook will comprise eight large quarto volumes; this is a review of the first volume, Carnivores, which provides detailed treatment of each living species of the order Carnivora. The book features a separate section for each family (the longest is Felidae-- 116 pages). Each family has a substantial general section, followed by accounts for each individual species; all subspecies are listed, but without details. The emphasis is on ecology, physiology, and behavior, with briefer treatments of biogeography and evolution. The volume features a detailed alphabetic index by common name and scientific name, but an inadequate table of contents. The extensive references (through 2008) are keyed by author and date to a single list at the end. Many will be inaccessible except in the largest research libraries; the book does not indicate which are likely to be both important and available. The glory of the book is the illustrations: excellent drawings of each species by Toni Llobet, and magnificent photographs, with some emphasis on the more spectacular aspects of feeding behavior. The work is more modern and detailed, and much better illustrated, than its only competitor, the mammal portion of Grzimek’s Animal Life Encyclopedia (2nd ed., CH, Sep’04, 42-0029), itself a slight update of the five-volume Grzimek’s Encyclopedia of Mammals (CH, Jun’90, 27-5523). Summing Up: Essential. Upper-level undergraduates and above.

D. Goodman, Princeton University