Book Review – Handbook of the Mammals of the World

Mark Smith reviews – Handbook of the Mammals of the World (published by Lynx Edicions)…

Just before Christmas the latest edition of the Handbook of the Mammals of the World dropped through the letterbox, or rather arrived via courier, because the handbook is a mighty opus of 9 volumes that documents every extant mammal species in the world. Its’ aim is to highlight the diversity on earth, promote less well known species and champion their conservation.

This epic work is produced by an international collaboration between Lynx Edicions the publisher and developers, Conservation International and the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature). Lynx Edicions are well versed in this kind of work, having already started with the Handbook of theBirds of the World. This 16 volume work completed in 2011 documented every bird species in the world. Following on from the early success of the first few volumes of the Handbook of the Birds of the World, the team moved onto mammals, publishing the first volume, Carnivores in 2009.

Each volume is a masterpiece of research and information, the first volume alone runs to 728 pages, 36 colour plates, 561 colour photographs and 258 distribution maps. Each mammal family is treated to a detailed account of its evolution, physiology and behaviour. This is more than a checklist but less than a field guide. Some complaints levelled against the books is their lack of skull or skeletal diagrams for fine detailed identification, but this misses the point of the