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

[Melanie]

Well, I still don't understand why there should be only one rodent volume. If you compare it with other rodent books:

Hall: Mammals of North America (1980, 2 volumes) devoted 544 pages to the rodents
Watts & Aslin (1981): Rodents of Australia 322 pages
Kingdon (2013): Mammals of Africa, Vol 3: Rodents. 784 pages
Patton, Pardinas, D'Elia: Mammals of South America Vol. 2: Rodents 1384 pages (forthcoming, scheduled for publishing in 2015)

Well, I don't know whether HMW 7 will be able to compete with these other books.

 

[Swissboy]

Is there a photo of the Australian humpback dolphin in HMW 4 (as some photos of this species were already published last year)?

Only Sousa chinensis is in the book, with a taxonomic note that recent mtDNA studies had shown the Australian population to be distinct.

 

[Melanie]

Only Sousa chinensis is in the book, with a taxonomic note that recent mtDNA studies had shown the Australian population to be distinct.

Interesting that S. teuszii and S. plumbea are not recognized.

 

[Swissboy]

Interesting that S. teuszii and S. plumbea are not recognized.

Sorry, that was a misunderstanding. I only meant to say that the Australian species is lumped in chinensis.

Actually, plumbea is lumped in there as well, whereas teuszii is a separate species.

 

[Melanie]

My copy arrived today. Well Neomonachus has not been adopted but the Australian humpback dolphin is illustrated on page 500. (Sousa plumbea too).

 

[Melanie]

Volume 5 is intended for May 2015 (though delaying might be always possible as usual). By the way the previous standard work for marsupials and monotremes is Strahan & Van Dyck: Mammals of Australia from 2008. I hope HMW 5 can compete with that work, in particular regarding the description of new species. For example: Three new Antechinus species were described in the past 2 years.

http://www.lynxeds.com/hmw/handbook-mammals-world-volume-5

 

[Mysticete]

How are Bottlenose Dolphins treated? 2 species I assume? or did they take a more radical revision

Are Eden's/Bryde's/Omura's Whale treated as different species?

How many right whales?

 

[Melanie]

Omura's whale is distinct
The Bryde's whale species edeni and brydei are considered synonymous
Two Bottlenose dolphin specoes: Common Bottlenose Dolphin Tursiops truncatus and Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin Tursiops aduncus
Three right whale species: North Atlantic Rightwhale Eubalaena glacialis, North Pacific Right Whale Eubalaena japonica, Southern Right Whale Eubalaena australis. Pygmy right whale is treated as own family.

 

[andy pertreg]

Hello everyone ...... i have a question for whoever got the first volume about the leopard plate >>> the sample plate posted on lynx website shows that the persian subspecies is smaller than the arabian one .. wich in real life is not true ( the persian subspecies can reach up to 230 cm while the arabian subspecies reach 103 cm ) .
So is it just on the website's plate or on the book too?....

thanks and correct me if i'm wrong

 

[andy pertreg]

another question - if i may ask - , how many subspecies of cougar are illustrated ? and is the asiatic (indian) subspecies of the lion illustrated or not ? and is the color morphs of some species of felidae - apart from the melanestic leopard - illustrated ( king cheetah-white lion ..etc) ??? .......

Thank you again

 

[njlarsen]

andy,
welcome to birdforum!

hopefully someone will come by with the answer

Niels

 

[Swissboy]

......persian subspecies is smaller than the arabian one .. wich in real life is not true ( the persian subspecies can reach up to 230 cm while the arabian subspecies reach 103 cm ) .
So is it just on the website's plate or on the book too?.............

......., how many subspecies of cougar are illustrated ? and is the asiatic (indian) subspecies of the lion illustrated or not ? and is the color morphs of some species of felidae - apart from the melanestic leopard - illustrated ( king cheetah-white lion ..etc) ??? .......

I'm not a mammal expert, but I have volume one, and thus I'll try to answer your questions to some extent at least. The book sticks to scientific names regarding subspecies. Eight such subspecies are shown, one being shown in melanistic color. So it's a full plate, just for Leopards. Sizes are not given for subspecies, just a general range for the species, with some extremes mentioned briefly. Thus, your size comparison can't be verified by me. Total for head-body is given as 92-190 cm, and tail 64-99 cm. Arabian subspecies, I presume it's nimr you are referring to, is illustrated. P.p.dathei given for S and C Iran is considered "of dubious validity" and not illustrated. So the "persian subspecies" you mention might be saxicolor then? It is illustrated in a rather different posture than nimr. Roughly, I'd consider both subspecies as being illustrated about the same size, with saxicolor looking a bit slimmer. I recall a recent accidental sighting in Thailand of an individual that looked very much smaller than what I have seen in Africa. I guess it must have been ssp. delacouri. And fittingly, that is the slimmest of the illustrated subspecies. Melanotica is shorter but bulkier, and the text says that those are the smallest.

Now briefly to your other questions:

There are usually no color morphs illustrated, though different subspecies present variability. Three ssp of lion are illustrated, including persica. There are three ssp of puma (cougar), one labelled as spotted morph. Cheetah has a "rex" morph specifically illustrated aside of the regular one. Jaguarundi is shown in red-brown and black (called iron gray). Lynx lynx is shown in four rather different looking ssp, plus ssp lynx shown in summer and winter appearance.

Hope this helps somewhat.

 

[andy pertreg]

Thank you for the warm welcome appreciate it

And Thank you swissboy for answering .... But my point was that ssp saxicolor ( persian leopard ) is one of the biggest subspecies if not the biggest, while ssp nimr ( arabian ) is the smallest, so i looked at the plate on the website and it shows the two are equal in size and even nimr shows bigger ! and i think that all the plates are on scale, so i thought mybe this mistake is only on the website's plate and in the book the plate shows that saxicolor is bigger than nimr, but since you've said that they the same size in the book plate, then it's the same as the one on the website.

It's a minor mistake and certainly won't effect the fascinating illustrations in this great book....what do you guys think ?

Thanks again !

 

[andy pertreg]

The plate on Lynx's website :

http://www.lynxeds.com/hmw/plate/family-felidae-cats

 

[andy pertreg]

Oh and one last thing...

About the subspecies of panthera tigris illustrated, i heard that only three of the six extant tiger ssp are illustrated.

Is this really the case ? Or they've increased the ssp illustrated like they did with the brown bear and the leopard ?

 

[Melanie]

About the subspecies of panthera tigris illustrated, i heard that only three of the six extant tiger ssp are illustrated.

Illustrations of extinct ssp / sp. are not include.

 

[andy pertreg]

Yes i know that extinct taxa are not illustrated, i've heard that only three of the 6 living subspecies of panthera tigris (sumatran - bengal - siberian - indochinese - south china - malayan ) are illustrated, so my question is : is it true that they've illustrated only three of them in the book or they've increased the number of subspecies drawn like they did with the brown bear ? ( there were only four illustrated subspecies of the brown bear and then they increased the number to six ! )

 

[Melanie]

Yes, only three subspecies are illustrated (Bengal, Sumatran, Siberian). But the Malayan tiger (P. t. jacksoni) is not recognized as the split was probably overlapped with the publication of that volume (in 2009). Illustrastred brown bears are six (Eurasian brown bear, Grizzly, Syrian, Tibetan, Kodiak, East asian (incl. Hokkaido, Ussuri))

 

[andy pertreg]

Thanks ....

What do you think of what i've written about the leopard plate ?

 

[zoltannemeth]

Thanks ....

What do you think of what i've written about the leopard plate ?

Mistakes can happen regarding the scales of the different species, even in HBW/HMW.

The pic attached shows a Palm-nut Vulture next to a Cape Vulture from the HBW online website, and the photo shows the real size difference between the 2 birds.