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Bovids of the World, Castello et al (1 Viewer)

T.O. said:
I don't think it ever has been. But you can spare yourself the cost of buying one, it is full of errors and dubious splits. The only real way it is of value is as a graphical complement to the heavily criticized Ungulate Taxonomy book by Groves & Grubb.
Click to expand...

Many thanks T.O,

there's a book on Felids due in December by the same author(s), are you able to comment on that, do anticipate the same to be true of this work?

http://www.wildsounds.com/products/6315-Felids-and-Hyenas-of-the-World.shtml
 
andyadcock said:
Many thanks T.O

there's a book on Felids due in December by the same author(s), are you able to comment on that?

http://www.wildsounds.com/products/6315-Felids-and-Hyenas-of-the-World.shtml
Click to expand...

The Canids book that came after it was much better when it comes to taxonomy, with only 1 dubious split (American vs. Eurasian Red Fox), but I don't own it, so don't know about any other errors.

I am personally not a big fan of such field guides as they are impractical to take into the field (and rather pointless given their narrow scope) and as reference works there are other better books. Many people seem to disagree though and they seem quite popular....
 
T.O. said:
The Canids book that came after it was much better when it comes to taxonomy, with only 1 dubious split (American vs. Eurasian Red Fox), but I don't own it, so don't know about any other errors.

I am personally not a big fan of such field guides as they are impractical to take into the field (and rather pointless given their narrow scope) and as reference works there are other better books. Many people seem to disagree though and they seem quite popular....
Click to expand...

Thanks for your comments.
 
You can download this book for free until the end of the month as it's available on the Project Muse website (which had its own thread a few weeks ago - dozens of good books still available for free). https://muse.jhu.edu/book/44215

Only downside is that the pdf for this title is compressed so the photos don't come out that well. And you have to download each chapter and recombine the pdfs.

The similar Canids book is there too.
 
Murray Lord said:
The similar Canids book is there too.
Click to expand...

Thanks for pointing that out. I just checked and this publication continues the bizarre trend (also perpetuated in HMW and others) of having the distribution of Wolf in Greenland completely wrong, showing virtually a mirror image of the actual distribution. Can't understand how this has never been corrected.
 
Murray Lord said:
You can download this book for free until the end of the month as it's available on the Project Muse website (which had its own thread a few weeks ago - dozens of good books still available for free). https://muse.jhu.edu/book/44215

Only downside is that the pdf for this title is compressed so the photos don't come out that well. And you have to download each chapter and recombine the pdfs.

The similar Canids book is there too.
Click to expand...

Thanks for this.
 
T.O. said:
I don't think it ever has been. But you can spare yourself the cost of buying one, it is full of errors and dubious splits. The only real way it is of value is as a graphical complement to the heavily criticized Ungulate Taxonomy book by Groves & Grubb.
Click to expand...

I find it a wonderfully informative field guide, full of information, and a great resource.
The author has obviously put an awful lot of time and effort into it. Any book with this level of information is going to contain errors.

Taxonomy is an arbitrary subject anyway, I can imagine for the vast majority of the readership it's not something that is a particular problem. Certainly for me, it doesn't detract from the effort and information found from cover to cover.

I'd certainly recommend buying it if you have any level of interest in Bovids.

James
 
T.O. said:
I don't think it ever has been. But you can spare yourself the cost of buying one, it is full of errors and dubious splits. The only real way it is of value is as a graphical complement to the heavily criticized Ungulate Taxonomy book by Groves & Grubb.
Click to expand...

I find this an interesting comment: I downloaded the book. Is there a summary of the areas of controversy /errors somewhere?
 
THE_FERN said:
I find this an interesting comment: I downloaded the book. Is there a summary of the areas of controversy /errors somewhere?
Click to expand...

With respect to the taxonomy, the pdf attached to this post gives a pretty good overview:
https://www.zoochat.com/community/t...the-splits-of-g-g.467230/page-14#post-1180892

For more details in individual species, you have to check their profiles in that thread. With regards to other errors the terms subspecies and species are confused all the time, some pictures are making animals appear more distinct than they are (and some seem falsely identified), there are also errors in some of the maps, but I don't think a list has been published for that.
 
T.O. said:
With respect to the taxonomy, the pdf attached to this post gives a pretty good overview:
https://www.zoochat.com/community/t...the-splits-of-g-g.467230/page-14#post-1180892

For more details in individual species, you have to check their profiles in that thread. With regards to other errors the terms subspecies and species are confused all the time, some pictures are making animals appear more distinct than they are (and some seem falsely identified), there are also errors in some of the maps, but I don't think a list has been published for that.
Click to expand...

Thanks for this
 
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