- Hardcover: 961 pages
- Publisher: OUP Oxford (27 Sep 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0198508239
- ISBN-13: 978-0198508236
- Product Dimensions: 29.6 x 24.8 x 6.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,000,887 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
| ||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
Product Description
The Times
'a rare combination of learning, decent writing, and knock-your-eyes out photography'
British Wildlife
'If you are interested in mammals, it will be hard to resist buying this excellent publication'
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
First Sentence
The platypus is confined to eastern Australia and Tasmania, the long-beaked echidna occurs only in New Guinea, while the short-beaked echidna is found in all of these regions, in almost all habitats. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
The platypus is confined to eastern Australia and Tasmania, the long-beaked echidna occurs only in New Guinea, while the short-beaked echidna is found in all of these regions, in almost all habitats. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
35 of 37 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Whilst I am very pleased to have this book, I do not wish to give unqualified praise. I think the coverage is unfortunately scanty in some areas, and often says nothing about familiar species.
This is a beautiful book with a lot of lovely pictures and information, and not over-populist in its content. However given the number of mammalian species, there is a limit to what you can cover in 1000 pages, and I think the balance is sometimes unfortunate. It is sometimes said that this encyclopaedia covers all mammalian species, however a great many are found only in a list of names. Entire families are given this treatment. Many other species are covered only with an uninformative three-line one-column entry. The coverage of bats is particularly weak, which is disappointing given that such a large proportion of mammalian species are bats. I have a slimmer encyclopaedia covering all vertebrate animals, which has at least a drawing of and a paragraph describing at least one representative of every mammalian family.
Just because an animal is familiar doesn't mean you will find any information on it. I give two examples. 1. A recent BBC programme on African wild-life spent some time showing Simien Foxes hunting African Mole Rats, a common and unusually large rodent much used as a human food source. It is related to the Bamboo Rat eaten in SE Asia. If you look up the African Mole Rat in the index, you will be referred to the section on Mole-Rats, which is an entirely different group of rodents. When you eventually find it many pages away, there is only a misleading and brief mention. 2. If, like many tourists, you travel to the high Andes of Peru or Bolivia, you will probably see Mountain Viscachas, and very little else. They are much photographed, featured in TV programmes, etc. But you will find no information on this animal beyond its name. However a drawing of the rarely-seen Plains Viscacha is provided.
The taxonomic list of all mammals would be much improved if it had page cross-references to the main section of the book.
15 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Far more detailed than any other mammalian encyclopaedia that I have come across. It includes many excellent pictures and illustrations, as well as a very usefull size comparison of each animal next to a man.
Information about the state of species populations is given, as is the state of endangerment.
Case study-like articles, about 2 pages in length, provide interesting facts about many of the mammals in the book.
The only caveat, however, is that it did not include humans in the book. We are the only living mammals left out of the book, but should deserve as much as the other great apes for that is what we are.
However, an excellent purchase, and something that I will spend countless hours reading and learning.
Information about the state of species populations is given, as is the state of endangerment.
Case study-like articles, about 2 pages in length, provide interesting facts about many of the mammals in the book.
The only caveat, however, is that it did not include humans in the book. We are the only living mammals left out of the book, but should deserve as much as the other great apes for that is what we are.
However, an excellent purchase, and something that I will spend countless hours reading and learning.
14 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The new encyclopedia of mammals is a pleasant and surprising mix of photographs, illustrations and text that consisely but comprehensively describes every mammal known to man today. The layout is easy to navigate considering the amount of information within the pages and the mix of scientific and layman's information is refreshing as was a diagramatic comparison of physical size rather than just a given measurement.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
