Handbook of the Mammals of the World

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My copy arrived this morning :) interestingly, the references and full index are not included in the main body of the book, being found on an enclosed CD-ROM, due to space constraints. For similar reasons, the species and family accounts have been substantially abridged from the initial drafts - apparently the book would have topped 1200 pages without these edits.
 
HOLY ****!

Yeah, as much as I would like one of these nifty-looking books, I can't afford it.
 
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TeaLovingDave said:
My copy arrived this morning :) interestingly, the references and full index are not included in the main body of the book, being found on an enclosed CD-ROM, due to space constraints. For similar reasons, the species and family accounts have been substantially abridged from the initial drafts - apparently the book would have topped 1200 pages without these edits.
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Mine hasn't arrived, yet. How are the Plates ? How do you feel , about the new guy Ilian Velikov ?
 
I read on Birdforum that they are planning an Illustrated Checklist of Mammals (just as they did with the birds). The primate illustrations will be done by Ilian Velikov, a Bulgarian artist who has a beautiful style and has already contributed significantly to the Bats volume of HMW (among other field guides). One wonders why they did not have the wisdom to let the plates in the original HMW primates book be drawn by somebody who can actually draw animals.

It also makes me wonder what kind of taxonomy they will follow or whether it will be the same inconsistent approach taken until now.
 
I’m so glad I waited it out! The plates were more or less the entire reason I wanted this set, but I’ve still never had the money to spare on the volumes I wanted years later, and was hoping for either a single book dedicated to them, or a subscription based website like HBW Online (soon to be shifted to a different site and title, now). I’d happily splurge on a single book with all the plates.
 
Dassie rat said:
Is the new book going to include species discovered since HBW began?
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According to the first book of a new series of Regional Illustrated checklists from Lynx, it is said that the upcoming Illustrated Checklist of the Mammals of the World will include the most recent changes and the new species described since the publication of the respective HMW volume. It also says that they will update and homogenize the taxonomic treatment followed in the HMW series.
 
Carlos M said:
According to the first book of a new series of Regional Illustrated checklists from Lynx, it is said that the upcoming Illustrated Checklist of the Mammals of the World will include the most recent changes and the new species described since the publication of the respective HMW volume. It also says that they will update and homogenize the taxonomic treatment followed in the HMW series.
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Let's hope the last sentence doesn't mean 100 species of Red Deer...
 
I got message in FB from Lynx, that they are planing "regional checklists of many regions" and I assume most of them will appear before the earlier mentioned "eagerly awaited Checklist of the Mammals of the World".
 
twilighter said:
I got message in FB from Lynx, that they are planing "regional checklists of many regions" and I assume most of them will appear before the earlier mentioned "eagerly awaited Checklist of the Mammals of the World".
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They have already started on these. I know there is one just out for "Mammals of the Southern Cone: Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay"

Kind of wish they'd started with areas which weren't covered in other works though - e.g. there is Mammals of South America which although clearly not of any use as a field guide still covers all the mammals (albeit not with the HBW taxonomy) and can be used pre-trip for making up notes, whereas somewhere like most of Indonesia doesn't have anything usable.
 
Looking at the sample plates of the coming soon "Mammals of South Asia" it is good to see that the new primate plates are a huge improvement. They do however stick with their hugely inconsistent taxonomy, following all the G&G splits (regardless of evidence) for the Bovids, but use the traditional approach for all the other families. E.g. Common Muntjac is not split, even though there is pretty good recent evidence and this is accepted by IUCN, but Takin are..

Mammals of South Asia – Lynx Edicions
 
lintworm said:
Looking at the sample plates of the coming soon "Mammals of South Asia" it is good to see that the new primate plates are a huge improvement. They do however stick with their hugely inconsistent taxonomy, following all the G&G splits (regardless of evidence) for the Bovids, but use the traditional approach for all the other families. E.g. Common Muntjac is not split, even though there is pretty good recent evidence and this is accepted by IUCN, but Takin are..

Mammals of South Asia – Lynx Edicions
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Sorry to trouble you all but has anybody ordered from Lynx Ed. before and how does it work? Do they ship to India?
 
lintworm said:
Mammals of South Asia – Lynx Edicions
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Primate plates are good, agreed.

At first look, one big omission is no detailed description of range. In practice, many mammals, especially recent splits, are best identified by range not visually. E.g. hoolocks gibbons east/west of the Chindwin River. The best would be, for rarer species, a list of reserves where it occurs/was reported. In practice, many mammals will be twitched in few known reserves, or are nowadays restricted to few particular reserves.

Following, map is often too general. Smaller map for restricted species would be better, e.g. showing e.g. only the region of Assam/Arunuchal Pradesh or the tip of Indian Peninsula and Sri Lanka. It would be similar to the Colllins Bird Guide which shows for some species only the Middle East or only the Iberian Peninsula.
 
lintworm said:
Looking at the sample plates of the coming soon "Mammals of South Asia" it is good to see that the new primate plates are a huge improvement. They do however stick with their hugely inconsistent taxonomy, following all the G&G splits (regardless of evidence) for the Bovids, but use the traditional approach for all the other families. E.g. Common Muntjac is not split, even though there is pretty good recent evidence and this is accepted by IUCN, but Takin are..

Mammals of South Asia – Lynx Edicions
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This means, they will keep the G&G for the others too. The new primates look good and will make us buy the final Illustrated Checklist.

They will probably stick to the 9 volumes taxonomy, until vol 10. will appear :)
 
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Junklekitteb said:
Sorry to trouble you all but has anybody ordered from Lynx Ed. before and how does it work? Do they ship to India?
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I don't see why not; I've ordered from them before and books were sent to UK just fine. If I recall, big books like the HMW volumes are sent by courier, but the Southern Cone book arrived by regular post I think.
 
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