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HMW Handbook of the Mammals of the World (1 Viewer)

Thank you, Rasmus, for your nevertheless quite thorough assessment! I have since received my copy as well, but I can't judge on the accuracy. Thus, your review is most helpful in that respect as well.

Inevitably, this new series is being compared with the bird series (HBW). While the basic set-up is pretty much similar, there have been some changes in the appearance. On the positive side, each photo clearly states the scientific name now in bold face. On the negative side, these captions to the photos now come in a smaller font than in HBW. This makes for harder reading for all whose eyesight is no longer (or never has been) optimal.

On first sight, the outside cover of any book is its first "calling card", so to speak. Here, I think, the new series has not received what it deserves. HBW comes in a somewhat unconventional and bold design, clearly indicating its extraordinary status. HMW, however, comes across as "just another" encyclopedia. I have several large animal books that all have a basically black cover (or at least spine) with white lettering. Thus, the new series does not stand out optically at all. A minor thing, maybe, but it might also be interpreted as "not being that extraordinary". Certainly not what the series deserves.
 
Meanwhile, I have been puzzled by the range maps. These show only the original or presumed native distribution. Thus, any range extensions due to human releases, such as the Red Fox in Australia are not shown. They are just briefly mentioned in the text. But they give no details about the extension in the area. I think this is a major flaw in an otherwise very informative book. I'd suggest showing the total range, but the parts that are due to releases could be shown with another color or with another signature such as lighter, dotted, striped.

The same omission, by the way, is also found in the HBW series. It may be that there is often too much uncertainty as to whether an introduced species will be there for good. But those cases of widespread occurrence like European Starlings in North America would definitely deserve being shown as well.
 
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Introduced ranges

I'd suggest showing the total range, but the parts that are due to releases could be shown with another color or with another signature such as lighter, dotted, striped.

The same omission, by the way, is also found in the HBW series. It may be that there is often too much uncertainty as to whether an introduced species will be there for good. But those cases of widespread occurrence like European Starlings in North America would definitely deserve being shown as well.
I agree it would be useful to distinguish between natural and introduced ranges on distribution maps.

The mapping of introduced species seems quite variable in HBW. eg, in Britain, Canada Goose, Ring-necked Pheasant & Little Owl are mapped, but Red-legged Partridge is not; in N America, Mute Swan, Ring-necked Pheasant & Rock Dove are mapped, but Chukar & Grey Partridge are not. I guess a judgement has been made on which are the most significant and sustainable introductions. Of course, some introductions have expanded their ranges so rapidly that any distribution maps would already be obsolete (eg, Eurasian Collared Dove in N America).

In general, I think that all species with widespread introduced ranges should preferably be fully mapped. But I don't beliveve it would be useful to attempt to illustrate the distributions of introduced species largely confined to urban areas (derived from cagebirds - mostly passerines & parrots), or small isolated populations derived from exotic pheasants & wildfowl - the description of such localised populations is perhaps better confined to the text.

Richard

PS: I'm looking forward to seeing HMW1 at the Birdfair in August.
 
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In general, I think that all species with widespread introduced ranges should preferably be fully mapped. But I don't beliveve it would be useful to attempt to illustrate the distributions of introduced species largely confined to urban areas (derived from cagebirds - mostly passerines & parrots), or small isolated populations derived from exotic pheasants & wildfowl - the description of such localised populations is perhaps better confined to the text.

.......


I fully agree with you. In particular, it would not be feasible to map very localised populations in the available space. And I think this should hold both for HBW and HMW.
 
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Anybody know where I could get this relatively cheap? I am not stingy but I can't see myself paying over £100 or even over £60 on a book unless it contained every single piece of information ever to be gathered by mankind on everything...
 
Anybody know where I could get this relatively cheap? I am not stingy but I can't see myself paying over £100 or even over £60...

I wouldn't hold your breath!! Maybe in about 10yrs time...?? Not even sure if you can pick up Vol 1 of HBW for less than £60 yet....
 
Changing direction slightly - Have just received my reminder for the forthcoming HBW 14 and see that the pre-publication offer is a whopping £150...ouch!!! I just hope they haven't used any sub-standard artists this time for that bloody price......I remember when the pp price was (just!) £85....happier times! So it's gone up £30-odd from last year alone...
 
Changing direction slightly - Have just received my reminder for the forthcoming HBW 14 and see that the pre-publication offer is a whopping £150...ouch!!! I just hope they haven't used any sub-standard artists this time for that bloody price......I remember when the pp price was (just!) £85....happier times! So it's gone up £30-odd from last year alone...

Be thankful you're not paying for it in Icelandic krónur!

As for HMW, I had a quick look through it at Birdfair and it seemed very impressive and superbly put together. However, even on the brief glance I'm pretty sure that the range map for Wolf in Greenland is completely wrong, almost the opposite of what it should be.

E
 
Received my copy today and must admit I think it's bloody good - the photos are top-notch and the plates are darned good too! Must admit to finding some of the taxonomic issues puzzling, like lumping all the tigers together (does this not downsize the plight of say, the Sumatran, if it's relegated to just being a ssp...?), same with the African and Asian Lion and was amazed to see Dingo treated as a ssp of Grey Wolf! I admit to not knowing much about the taxonomy of mammals but this was a surprise! Still a great book and looking forward to the rest of the series
 
Received my copy today and must admit I think it's bloody good - the photos are top-notch and the plates are darned good too! Must admit to finding some of the taxonomic issues puzzling, like lumping all the tigers together (does this not downsize the plight of say, the Sumatran, if it's relegated to just being a ssp...?), same with the African and Asian Lion and was amazed to see Dingo treated as a ssp of Grey Wolf! I admit to not knowing much about the taxonomy of mammals but this was a surprise! Still a great book and looking forward to the rest of the series

No strong evidence supports treating the various tigers or lions as anything but subspecies per the Biological Species Concept. Species *only* if following the Phylogenetic Species Concept or alike. A few authorities have said they also should be species per BSC, but the supporting evidence that has been published until now just doesn't hold at anything above the previously mentioned PSC & alike. The Dingo is more of an issue of nomenclature than taxonomy. It is clearly part of the same BSC species as the Grey Wolf (even if the "traditional" limits of the Grey Wolf quite certainly don't hold, but that's another discussion), but some authorities have argued for the validity of the "domestics name" versus the name of the (sometimes presumed) ancestors, in which case the Dingo would be a ssp. of C. familiaris. Similar examples are the by some used S. domestica for the pig versus S. scrofa for the Wild Boar, or E. caballus for the horse versus E. ferus for the Wild Horse. If I remember right (which isn't certain, 'cause my interest in the domestics is somewhat limited), ICZN has even been asked to take a stance on the validity of certain names of some of the domestics.
 
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Thanks for that Ras - as they (who are 'they' I've often wondered) say, you're never too old to learn something new!!
 
The maps in the HMW are the same as the in the IUCN redlist

here is the example with the Gray Wolf

http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/3746/0

Thanks for that, Melanie. Yes, I'm pretty sure that's completely wrong as far as Wolves in Greenland are concerned (although I'm more than willing to be corrected). As far as I know Wolves only occur across the top end of Greenland and down the east coast roughly to Scoresbysund i.e. the blank area on the map. They are accidental at best on the west coast south of the Qaanaaq area and certainly wouldn't be tolerated any longer than it took to grab a rifle on the more densely populated areas of the west coast. A minor complaint about an otherwise superb publication.
 
I was a little involved in domestic swine research some years ago, and there would to my mind be good reason to use Sus domesticus for the domestic one: they do not even have the same number of chromosomes as most wild boar. The few wild boar with the domestic number are likely to have had recent domestic ancesters, so be of "hybrid" origin. When doing planned interbreeding for gene mapping, these wild boars with domestic chromosome number were preferred, it seemed that the results were better in terms of husbandry and offspring ... Having said that, I can only remember having seen Sus scrofa for the domestic pig.

Niels
 
I am browsing through my copy for the last two weeks.

I still remain with the opinion, that it is the very good worldwide overview of carnivores. However, reservations are piling up.

The chapter on general overview of mammals is poor textbook style - brief and boring. The author could read a blogger Darren Naish (of tetrapodzoology blog) to see that anatomy can be interesting and full of facts directly revelant to animal's life.

Also, the family texts seem partially rather boring and obvious, but interesting bits are omitted. Why list which cat species occur in which habitats (lynx and cougar in boreal forests etc...), but omit interesting facts on in large predator management or on molecular and biomechanical studies of sabre-toothed cats?

Among mistakes is that eurasian lynx rarely hunts red deer, its habit of hiding prey is omitted, that indochinese clouded leopard hunt proboscis monkeys, and asian badger is a mess (apparently both texts didn't get updated very well after the split of clouded leopards and eurasian badgers into two species).

Taxonomy is sometimes strange. For ferret-badgers and egyptian weasel, I would be very interested in reasons of their specific status. Although the mammalian taxonomy is often in need of review, it could more often be briefly discussed and gaps in knowledge and needs of revision mentioned.

Subspecies, as Rasmus pointed, are a particular mess. They are usually not descibed, sometimes not listed at all, and sometimes subspecies on the colour plate even don't match ones in the text! Also, they are not written on photos, unlike HBW. Bad decision, because subspecies of carnivores often differ dramatically in apperance, ecology and conservation status.

A few photos are not too well reproduced, and worrying number of them are painfully captive trained cats or were frequently published (this photo of two dingos with a goanna I saw maybe a dozen times over many years - I cannot believe that dingos are difficult to photograph!?). Strangely, I saw many much better pics of eg. hunting lions or wolves with cubs.

So, a good book, but nowhere matches HBW and there is a large room for improvement for the next volumes.
 
I was a little involved in domestic swine research some years ago, and there would to my mind be good reason to use Sus domesticus for the domestic one: they do not even have the same number of chromosomes as most wild boar.

There are a number of cases (e.g. Aotus) where different chromosome numbers occur among taxa known to hybridize freely where they come into contact (i.e. part of a single BSC species), and, as is known from several cases both from Mammalia (e.g. Sorex) and other classes (e.g. Corydoras), the number of autosomes can be far more plastic than traditionally has been believed. To my knowledge, there is no evidence suggesting any limit (other than farmers!) exists for geneflow between domestic pigs & their wild ancestors. Consequently, treating them as separate species is not a possibility if following BSC. If having a preference for PSC, they are, of course, clearly separate species (and regardless of species concept, the taxonomy of Sus scrofa will likely need reshuffling at some point; notably some south-east Asian populations appear to be closer to various other Sus sp. in that region than to the "traditional" populations within S. scrofa).
 
There are a number of cases (e.g. Aotus) where different chromosome numbers occur among taxa known to hybridize freely where they come into contact (i.e. part of a single BSC species), and, as is known from several cases both from Mammalia (e.g. Sorex) and other classes (e.g. Corydoras), the number of autosomes can be far more plastic than traditionally has been believed. To my knowledge, there is no evidence suggesting any limit (other than farmers!) exists for geneflow between domestic pigs & their wild ancestors. Consequently, treating them as separate species is not a possibility if following BSC. If having a preference for PSC, they are, of course, clearly separate species (and regardless of species concept, the taxonomy of Sus scrofa will likely need reshuffling at some point; notably some south-east Asian populations appear to be closer to various other Sus sp. in that region than to the "traditional" populations within S. scrofa).

When I wrote the Sus domesticus remark, I was thinking in analogy to the Wolf/dog situation, if one deserves a separate designation, then it is my feeling that the other also does. Maybe the more stringent outcome would be to not use domesticus for the dog?

The notes about chromosome plasticity are interesting! Currently teaching human genetics, I am telling the students that the risk of getting phenotypically abnormal ofspring for a heterozygote of a chromosome fusion is about 66% at the time of the zygote, falling to a (much) lower number during gestation due to fetal loss. For that reason, I think of chromosome number discrepancies as a partial isolating mechanism. Behavior-wise, I am not sure the swine don't have isolating mechanisms as well; if you want to have them interbreed, then it is impossible for a domestic boar to be accepted by a wild sow, and the other way, there is still a risk that the wild boar kills the sow instead of doing what you want. Of course, if running wild in the forest, the wild boar could be behaving differently than in semiwild husbandry conditions.

Do you have any references of the cases you describe for mammalia?

thanks
Niels
 
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