Mysticete
Well-known member
Debated which forum to put this on, but given that I feel it's more of interest here than necessarily the books section, and because I am hoping to slowly add the revised species level phylogeny in follow up comments, I figured I should post here.
First off, this is not a popular press book; it's a fairly technical species by species scientific treatise. There are no illustrations at all from what I recall, but plenty of tables and anatomical terminology. For the most part, most of the information is focused on taxonomy, and there is very little behavioral, conservation, etc information, although some stuff is scattered in there.
The genesis of this book was essentially the recent passing of the influential Peter Grubb, who skillfully managed to publish authoritative taxonomic revisions in the scientific literature all the while working as a high school teacher. Colin Groves essentially uses this book to review his and Grubb's papers (They were often coauthors, besides friends), as well as a polishing up and publishing many uncomplete manuscripts Grubb had worked on before his passing.
The book covers all Artiodactyl and Perissodactyl families; Elephants, hyraxes, and aardvarks are not discussed. The first 10 pages provide a brief introduction, including describing the species concept they use, the history of ungulate taxonomy, and the impact the new taxonomy has on biogeography and conservation. This is a well written introductory bit that I think most layman would appreciate.
The rest of the book is a family by family break down and review of subfamily, genus, species, and subspecies taxonomy, including their revisions. If you have seen the Bovidae chapter of Handbook of Mammals of the World, you know what to expect, with the biggest impact probably effecting pigs, deer, giraffes, and of course the bovids.
The writing and quality of the different sections is fairly uneven. Some heading give Common names and detailed range information; some don't. Usually the authors cite other papers, but some entries advise readers to check out Wikipedia links (no, really...). While I understand the lack of illustrations, range maps, even if they only only contained locality dots, would be incredibly helpful. Thankfully the Bovidae chapter, the worst victim of lack of range information, can be crosschecked with HMW. Often keywords are thrown out at the beginning of a section, and then completely ignored. At times one gets a rather "rush job" feeling for the writing, which overall could use further polishing
The same could go for the reasoning behind many splits. The authors rely on a fairly small number of morphological measurements to support their taxonomic revisions, and often many species are represented by small sample sizes. No doubt many of these splits are valid and will receive further support, but one does wonder if a larger sample size or more exhaustive look might not produce different results. I will be interested in seeing how well many of these changes are accepted.
I should also mention that this is by far not a final revision of artiodactyl taxonomy. The authors back away from some groups, and little revision takes place. New World Deer and to a lesser extent pigs are probably the greatest victims of this, though the disregard for Elephants (considered ungulates by almost everyone) is worse. It's actually no terribly obvious how many species the authors recognize in the former two groups.
Anyway, this is my take on things. I will be adding the species level taxonomy in subsequent posts on this thread, for anyone interested but without access to this book.
First off, this is not a popular press book; it's a fairly technical species by species scientific treatise. There are no illustrations at all from what I recall, but plenty of tables and anatomical terminology. For the most part, most of the information is focused on taxonomy, and there is very little behavioral, conservation, etc information, although some stuff is scattered in there.
The genesis of this book was essentially the recent passing of the influential Peter Grubb, who skillfully managed to publish authoritative taxonomic revisions in the scientific literature all the while working as a high school teacher. Colin Groves essentially uses this book to review his and Grubb's papers (They were often coauthors, besides friends), as well as a polishing up and publishing many uncomplete manuscripts Grubb had worked on before his passing.
The book covers all Artiodactyl and Perissodactyl families; Elephants, hyraxes, and aardvarks are not discussed. The first 10 pages provide a brief introduction, including describing the species concept they use, the history of ungulate taxonomy, and the impact the new taxonomy has on biogeography and conservation. This is a well written introductory bit that I think most layman would appreciate.
The rest of the book is a family by family break down and review of subfamily, genus, species, and subspecies taxonomy, including their revisions. If you have seen the Bovidae chapter of Handbook of Mammals of the World, you know what to expect, with the biggest impact probably effecting pigs, deer, giraffes, and of course the bovids.
The writing and quality of the different sections is fairly uneven. Some heading give Common names and detailed range information; some don't. Usually the authors cite other papers, but some entries advise readers to check out Wikipedia links (no, really...). While I understand the lack of illustrations, range maps, even if they only only contained locality dots, would be incredibly helpful. Thankfully the Bovidae chapter, the worst victim of lack of range information, can be crosschecked with HMW. Often keywords are thrown out at the beginning of a section, and then completely ignored. At times one gets a rather "rush job" feeling for the writing, which overall could use further polishing
The same could go for the reasoning behind many splits. The authors rely on a fairly small number of morphological measurements to support their taxonomic revisions, and often many species are represented by small sample sizes. No doubt many of these splits are valid and will receive further support, but one does wonder if a larger sample size or more exhaustive look might not produce different results. I will be interested in seeing how well many of these changes are accepted.
I should also mention that this is by far not a final revision of artiodactyl taxonomy. The authors back away from some groups, and little revision takes place. New World Deer and to a lesser extent pigs are probably the greatest victims of this, though the disregard for Elephants (considered ungulates by almost everyone) is worse. It's actually no terribly obvious how many species the authors recognize in the former two groups.
Anyway, this is my take on things. I will be adding the species level taxonomy in subsequent posts on this thread, for anyone interested but without access to this book.
