Product Description

As mammals ourselves, we have always been fascinated with this most advanced class of animals, and Simon & Schuster's Guide to Mammals describes 426 species worldwide. A long and thoughtful introduction to the evolution, characteristics, and orders of mammals is followed by the entries -- all illustrated in full color -- each containing the mammal's classification, description, and habitat as well as details on behavior, feeding habits, and reproduction. The entries also feature colorful symbols to illustrate habitat, color maps to show the distribution and rarity of each species, and line drawings to indicate unusual or notable physical features.

With more than 500 color photographs, Simon & Schuster's Guide to Mammals is a superb and valuable reference. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Prepare for frustration
As part of my job, I am often trying to quickly look up mammalian taxonomy.Once I find the mammal, the information is good - however, getting there can be a battle.The index drives me CRAZY.For example, take peek at the sample pages.Look up 'bat' in the index.Note that it's not there.You have to know the EXACT common or scientific name to find an animal.Or else just browse through the appropriate chapter.The time I've spent just trying to find a particular species knocks this down to three stars, and that's being generous

Great photographic guide!
This book is great on its own or as a companion to the [...]Smithsonian Handbooks: Mammals guide. It's not as slick or aesthetic in its layout as the Smithsonian guide, but it features about the same number of species, including some that the Smithsonian one leaves out! It is not comprehensive, but still a good representation of the important families and species.
Some of the photos are of less than stellar quality, but they ALL show a very good representation of the animals in their natural habitats. None of the animals have been cropped around the edges (As in the Smithsonian book), and the species descriptions are more in-depth.

I reccommend this book to anyone who loves photographic guides or learning about animals!

This book is a fun way to educate people of the mamal world.
As an animal lover I found that this book was the best for the price.Ifound it to be excellent for those that are looking for just commonknowledge of the mamal world. ... Read more

Product Description
Since its original publication in 1993, The Safari Companion has been the best field guide to observing and understanding the behavior of African mammals. An indispensable tool for naturalists traveling to Africa, this new edition has been revised to acknowledge the enthusiasm to those watching these magnificent animals at zoos and wildlife parks, and on film.

Customer Reviews (32)

Loads of Information
Five star for a professional, about a 3 for a casual reader!. Black and white beautiful "hand drawn" or sketched pictures of animals. It is very very well done, but basically more information than I needed to know. I really wasn't interested in an very detailed descriptiond about elephants mating, but interested about their warning signals, etc. etc.It is really more for someone leading a Safari or a professional guide.Too heavy to take on Safari, but interesting before and after!.

Dont judge a book by its title
While this book has usuful information for a non-student it reads more like a college text. It is more appropriate on a class reading list then for the casual safari goer.

Certainly NOT very good condition
I was somewhat disappointed in the condition of the book that was listed as "very good condition".It was a library book with stickers all over it and worn cover.The book itself is fine, but I will be reluctant to purchase used books in the future.

Fantastic safari companion
I brought this book along for a Safari in Tanzania and was very glad I brought it. The book might be a tad bigger and thicker than one would want to travel with, but it paid dividends in offering much more interesting and complete descriptions of the animals and their behavior. It is very easy to look them up while viewing the animals from the back of a bumpy jeep ride. I also brought along "Wildlife of East Africa," published by Princeton Pocket Guides, which is a more glossy, pictorial treatment, and does fit in your pocket. I found that the two books went together nicely: one to give you the glossy color picture and a thumbnail description, and the other to offer a non-glossy, more thorough description.

Anyway, Estes seems like a terrific authority, and I would definitely recommend bringing this book on Safari. Not a bad book to have around the house to remember the journey either.

informative
this book is definitely informative but a bit too dry for my taste... I am plowing thru it though, prior to a trip to Botswana, Africa in May 2010. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (1)

An excellent guide

This book is an excellent guide to the 500 mammal species that live in mainland Southeast Asia. Every species is described in detail with key identification features, ecology, habitat, distribution, and status. There are 72 high-quality color plates and 422 very good distribution maps. 74 excellent line drawings illustrate animal tracks and other technical details.

There are still discoveries to be made in the area. For example, Charles Francis was part of the team that found a lactating male bat; from "The New York Times":

"Scientists casting their nets in the dense forest canopies of Malaysia have discovered the first example of a wild male mammal that lactates. The species is a Dayak fruit bat, a large and poorly understood creature with an 18-inch wingspan, a dog-like face and, it turns out, a touch of androgyny. When the researchers captured a group of the bats in a wide-ranging effort to survey animals that inhabit the Malaysian canopy, they were dumbfounded to see that the eight adult male Dayaks in the net all had visibly swollen breasts that produced milk upon being gently squeezed.

"'They looked like perfectly good males with large testes, but from the other end I could see they also had well-developed breasts,' said Dr. Charles M. Francis, a research associate with the Wildlife Conservation Society..."

Francis is an expert in birds and in the bats of this area, but also has a keen interest in mammals. He has included interesting essays on finding and studying mammals and on conservation.

This book is a great resource for a general reader like myself who enjoys learning about animals, in my arm chair, and when I'm really lucky, on the ground. This book is a great resource for either purpose.

Robert C. Ross 2008 ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

Essential for the serious Africa animal lover
If you want to be a safari guide, you need this book.It's quite the gold standard for detailed characteristics and behavior of African animals.

this guy rocks so hard
I love my Jon Kingdon..the guy just draws so well and reading his accounts and observation you can tell he has a love for the animals he draws.Just amazing.Luckily I bought my copy when it was "only" 50 bucks, not sure why its so expensive now but I must say it's almost worth the new price.

A "Must-Have" For All Wildlife Artists!
As a professional Wildlife Artist, my field includes painting, sculpture, and taxidermy.

This makes all of the "East African Mammals"series of books by Jonathan Kingdon an absolute necessity.The text givesa wonderful insight into the natural history as well as the historicalancestry of the majority of East Africa's wild children.

But evenmore, it is Mr. Kingdon's exquisite pencil renderings of the individualspecies as well as the structure of their musculature, that make thesebooks so special.

These musculature drawings, in turn, are furtherenhanced by deeper dissection-like illustrations revealing the deepermuscle structures responsible for much of the movement and support for themammal in question.These types of drawings are especially fascinating inthis, the Large Mammals volume, wherein the trunk of the elephant and themouth structure of the hippopotamus are visually dissected to provide agreater insight into these structures, and their performance in theanimal.

Also covered in this Large Mammals volume, is the Zebra and theGiraffe.Among the extensive coverage, the zebras' anatomy is not onlyprinted, but it is also illustrated in all its' stripe variations, as wellas its' ancestral evolutionary development.Included with the giraffe, weget a look at the muscles, as well as its' coat and how the predator sees -or more correctly - doesn't see its' quarry!

The books in this seriesare therefore especially indispensable to the Wildlife Restorer(taxidermist) as a guide to anatomy that we rarely get to see"in-the-flesh" as it were.

I can, therefore, wholeheartedlyrecommend this series of books to anyone who cares enough about theirchosen field of art, to pursue all ends to collect as much referencematerial as possible.

These books are an excellent addition to thewildlife artists' library. ... Read more

Product Description
Despite strong public interest in marine mammals and the incredible popularity of whale watching, particularly in the North Atlantic, many marine mammal populations remain little known. This fully illustrated book is a comprehensive and attractive guide to the marine mammals of the North Atlantic--and the only guide to cover all fifty-one species found there. It offers whale watchers and other marine mammal enthusiasts the means to identify the region's seals, manatees, walrus, and polar bear in addition to its forty species of whales, dolphins, and porpoises.

Distribution maps for each species complement the 250 striking color illustrations. The straightforward text emphasizes diagnostic features but also covers the behavior, reproduction, feeding, habitat, and migration of these intrinsically fascinating animals. In the process, the book sorts out marine mammal taxonomy, answering such questions as how dolphins and porpoises differ and whether killer whales are really dolphins or whales.

As a guide, this book will be invaluable to boaters, divers, shore dwellers, and all who venture into or on North Atlantic water. It will also interest aquarium visitors and anyone who has ever wanted to see a pod of whales, school of dolphins, or society of porpoises in action.

• illustrates and depicts the diagnostic features of all 51 marine mammal species occurring in the North Atlantic
• gives full coverage to not only whales, dolphins, and porpoises but also seals, manatees, the walrus, and the polar bear
• features 250 color illustrations
• contains distribution maps for each species and provides information on behavior, reproduction, and feeding for each species
• describes the North Atlantic as a habitat for marine mammals
• features concise text written by a top expert

Product Description
Radiology is a routine diagnostic procedure in all fields of clinical veterinary practice, and exotic medicine is no exception. Besides an increasing interest and concurrent demand for a higher level of care of these species, very little is reported in the scientific literature about normal radiographic patterns, and radiographic abnormalities are generally limited to case reports.

Clinical Radiology of Exotic Companion Mammals is designed to fill this gap. It provides a practical resource for veterinarians wishing to add these special species to their clinical practice, and a ready reference for those already including those species among their caseload. Clearly labeled normal images will aid anyone interested in comparative radiographic anatomy, and the techniques section will help overcome difficulties related to the smaller size of many exotic companion mammals.

Features of the book include:

• wide range of exotic mammal species beyond ferrets, rabbits, and rodents, including species such as marsupials, hedgehogs and potbellied pigs
  
• a review of the basic principles of radiology, equipment, radiologic techniques and patient positioning helpful for optimizing exotic companion mammal radiography
  
• an extensive review of both normal and pathologic radiographic patterns. Some of the latter are accompanied by clinical or surgical images to aid the practitioner in familiarization with a wide range of both common and uncommon lesions.

Product Description
From gray whales giving birth in the lagoons of Baja California to sea otters nestled in kelp beds off California to killer whales living around Vancouver Island--this spectacular stretch of the Pacific Coast boasts one of the most abundant populations of sea mammals on earth. This handy interpretive field guide describes the 45 whales, dolphins, seals, and otters that are resident in, migrate through, or forage from Baja in Mexico to British Columbia in Canada. The guide's rich species accounts provide details on identification, natural history, distribution, and conservation. They also tell where and how these fascinating animals can best be viewed. Introductory chapters give general information on the ecology, evolution, and taxonomy of marine mammals; on the Pacific Coast's unique environment; and on the relationship between marine mammals and humans from native cultures to today. Featuring many color illustrations, photographs, drawings, and maps, this up-to-date guide illuminates a fascinating group of animals and reveals much about their mysterious lives in the ocean. ... Read more

Product Description
Taking an integrated approach to the biology of marine carnivores, cetaceans, and sirenians, twenty-two prominent researchers compare marine mammals with one another and with terrestrial mammals, providing a framework for fundamental biological and ecological concepts. They describe functional morphology, sensory systems, energetics, reproduction, communication and cognition, behavior, distribution, population biology, and feeding ecology. They also detail the physiological adaptations—for such activities and processes as diving, thermo-regulation, osmoregulation, and orientation—that enable marine mammals to exploit their aquatic environment. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Good Shipping
The book was in good shape, and the sjipping was very fast.The book however did not come with the cover and had red highlighting.When buying the book, the description said that it had some highlighting but it should have said more detail.The previose owner was neglectful with the underlining, and the book had smudges of what seems like dirt.The book did not come with the paper cover either.

Bueno pero...
El libro como información es muy bueno. A lo largo de todo el libro se puede encontrar un compendio excelente acerca de todo lo relacionado a la biología marina, con buena información y con una aparente excelente bibliografía. El único gran problema son los gráficos, fuera excelente a full color, pero todos los gráficos son en escala de grises.

excellent resource on marine mammals
I personally feel this book is one of the best comprehensive reviews of marine mammal biology out there.Both of the editors as well as all of the authors of the book are reknowned in their fields of marine mammal science. Reynolds and Rommel compiled a great resource for aspiring marinescientists as well as professionals.

Exelente libro
El contenido es muy bueno, una obra de consulta permanente y actualizada. Cubre todos los enfoques. Realmente es un muy buen compendio de información que por lo general es difícil de conseguir.

biology of marine mammals
excelente mamotreto, grandiosas imagenes y contenido ... Read more

Product Description
Donald F. Hoffmeister's authoritative guide provides a detailed profile of all the state's mammals, past and present - from the elephant-sized mastodons that roamed the region during the Ice Age and the black bears and bobcats that early Illinois settlers encountered, to the plethora of creatures that now live on the state's prairies, woodlands, and hills. Outlining how human activities such as hunting and farming have altered the state's terrain and affected numerous species, Hoffmeister discusses which species have been wiped out, which are endangered or threatened, which no longer live in Illinois but survive elsewhere, and which might inhabit the region in the future.In this comprehensive study, now available for the first time in paperback, Hoffmeister briefly characterizes the climate, soils, and vegetation of Illinois, particularly as they affect mammals. In addition to detailing mammals known to be present in the area during the Pleistocene and Holocene eras, Hoffmeister identifies each order and family of mammals present in Illinois since 1900. Within each family, each species is characterized by habit, habitat, food, reproduction, population, and variation.These entries are supplemented by tables, anatomical drawings, photographs, and Illinois and United States distribution maps. Enhanced by sixty color photographs, more than one hundred line drawings, and a glossary of scientific terms, "Mammals of Illinois" is an indispensable resource for students, teachers, biologists, and nature enthusiasts. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A crucial reference.
The result of a lifetime of work from the Illinois "mammalmeister." This is the most comprehensive study of Illinois mammals ever published. Included are a brief history of Illinois mammalstudy, geography, chromosomes, life histories, distributions, economicuses, ecology, climate, soil, vegetation, recent extinctions, endangeredspecies, and archeological data. ... Read more

Product Description
Donald F. Hoffmeister's authoritative guide provides a detailed profile of all the state's mammals, past and present - from the elephant-sized mastodons that roamed the region during the Ice Age and the black bears and bobcats that early Illinois settlers encountered, to the plethora of creatures that now live on the state's prairies, woodlands, and hills. Outlining how human activities such as hunting and farming have altered the state's terrain and affected numerous species, Hoffmeister discusses which species have been wiped out, which are endangered or threatened, which no longer live in Illinois but survive elsewhere, and which might inhabit the region in the future.In this comprehensive study, now available for the first time in paperback, Hoffmeister briefly characterizes the climate, soils, and vegetation of Illinois, particularly as they affect mammals. In addition to detailing mammals known to be present in the area during the Pleistocene and Holocene eras, Hoffmeister identifies each order and family of mammals present in Illinois since 1900. Within each family, each species is characterized by habit, habitat, food, reproduction, population, and variation.These entries are supplemented by tables, anatomical drawings, photographs, and Illinois and United States distribution maps. Enhanced by sixty color photographs, more than one hundred line drawings, and a glossary of scientific terms, "Mammals of Illinois" is an indispensable resource for students, teachers, biologists, and nature enthusiasts. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A crucial reference.
The result of a lifetime of work from the Illinois "mammalmeister." This is the most comprehensive study of Illinois mammals ever published. Included are a brief history of Illinois mammalstudy, geography, chromosomes, life histories, distributions, economicuses, ecology, climate, soil, vegetation, recent extinctions, endangeredspecies, and archeological data. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A pretty good guide to the animals
This handy little volume is one of three things you should definitely have knocking around loose inside your Land Cruiser on safari.The other two, of course, are the well-stocked drink cooler and Lady Jane.Yes, gin-and-tonic DOES help with malaria, and has far fewer side effects than Larium.In any case, the book is organized in a reasonable way, by families, so that the cats are together in the same section of text and not, for example, strewn about amid elephants and impalas. Thus animals are fairly easy to find even without recourse to the (adequate) index, which lists the page on which descriptive text appears as well as the page on which the animal is illustrated.The illustrations are nicely rendered watercolors that are perhaps less vivid than high-quality photographs might be, but at least show idealized animals that lack any confusing idiosyncracies sometimes seen of individual photographed animals.Certain features of the book are clearly out of date, such as the names of the more recent African countries; Lady Jane was befuddled by a country named Rhodesia occupying the territory of Zimbabwe.Unfortunately, she has been imbibing (in an absolutely out-of-character manner) an American abomination called kamikazes, so she is a trifle under the weather.Another difficulty is that animals that presently are desperately endangered, such as the bongo, were not described as such back in the '70s when most of the text was evidently written.But the written descriptions of the animals are excellent, and most handy in the field, especially when you can find both the text description and the illustration, putting fingers in the book to mark the place of each, and then looking back and forth from text to picture to animal and back again, etc.It is a lot easier than it sounds, even when the Land Cruiser is in one of its bouncier modes.Or ditto Lady Jane ... Read more

Product Description
Environmental conditions change considerably in the course of 24 h with respect to abiotic factors and intra- and interspecific interactions. These changes result in limited time windows of opportunity for animal activities and, hence, the question of when to do what is subject to fitness maximisation. This volume gives a current overview of theoretical considerations and empirical findings of activity patterns in small mammals, a group in which the energetic and ecological constraints are particularly severe and the diversity of activity patterns is particularly high. Following a comparative ecological approach, for the first time activity timing is consequently treated in terms of behavioural and evolutionary ecology, providing the conceptual framework for chronoecology as a new subdiscipline within behavioural ecology. An extensive Appendix gives an introduction to methods of activity modelling and to tools for statistical pattern analysis. ... Read more

Product Description
A field guide to mammal tracks with detailed illustrations, concise useful information, and a key for identification. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

well organized and thorough
This was my first winter tracking anything with interest and this book was a tremendous help.We have woods and swamp and creek and many creatures large and small inhabit them.What a joy to use this book and then follow something.

Great illustrations
Mammal Tracks and Scat: Life-Size Tracking Guide
Diane Gibbons book is particularly wonderful because of the illustrations.She has accurately drawn the tracks and scat and it[Tracks and Scat: Life-Size Tracking Guide]] gives a real feel for the animal.Her book has a lightness about it this is quite refreshing.She has recently written a book with stories about tracking which fits with the aura of this book.

What Kind of Critter Was Here?
Do you find yourself scratching your head when you examine tracks in the snow in your back yard?Have you wondered what beast left that distinctive scat on a wooden footbridge?Diane Gibbons' book is going to illuminate your world.Where the book is most useful is in differentiating among the signs of closely-related animals, such as wolf, coyote, and fox.And then there are the seldom-seen, difficult to identify signs, such as martin tracks and lynx scat.The book is wonderfully illustrated, and makes a great reference for the swift and accurate identificatioin of the tracks and signs of all mammals in the nine northeastern states.The diagrams illustrating the range of each animal are a welcome bonus.

original
There are numerous original concepts in this book: a key to identifying tracks, key identification features with arrows, species comparison pages (i.e. otter vs. fisher), and mating seasons compared across species.A wonderful addition to the diversity of tracking books on the market!And a generous book filled with wondrous illustrations created with real heart.Buy it.

Finally, a key to tracking!
Diane Gibbons does an amazing job helping amateur trackers to decipher what we see in the field.I have yet to see a book that has a key, similar to botanical field guides, allowing us to piece together the tracks we see.The key is key!The illustrations are wonderful, as well, and equally helpful.Finally, the book is small enough to fit in a daypack.I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about the wildlife around us. ... Read more

Product Description
Of the world's 4,000 to 4,500 mammal species, about 1,100 occur in Africa. In this updated and revised edition of Field Guide to the Larger Mammals of Africa, authors Chris and Tilde Stuart concentrate on the more visible and easily distinguished larger mammal species, plus some of the more frequently seen smaller mammals. In all, over 400 color photographs, combined with concise, pertinent information highlighting the diagnostic features of each species, provide a comprehensive source of information on each mammal. The latest information has been incorporated and the distribution maps have been revised to reflect the most up-to-date habitat and distribution patterns for each species. A new feature is the inclusion of the mammals' skulls, grouped together at the back of the book. To aid the reader, color-coding and symbols indicating the habitat and activity period serve as a quick reference to the various mammal groups. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Field Guide to the Larger Mammals of Africa
I encountered this book in South Africa at the game preserve where I went on a brief safari. In the process of looking for the book after I left, I found that most other guides have drawings, not photographs, to show the animals. The photographs alone are worth the price. There is also information about physical characteristics, distinguishing features to help identify the animal, habitat, behavior and rarity. Many have pictures (not photographs) of their tracks. Delightful and fascinating!

Field Guide to the Larger Mammals of Africa
I bought this book a long time ago when it was first published because I was looking for some information on primates and carnivores of Africa. When I found this book I wasn't disappointed! There are full colour, clearpictures on every page on primates, hoofed mammals, the elephant,carnivores, the aardvark, hyraxes, pangolins, rabbits and hares and therodents. The carnivore section is the best but they all show originalphotographs and accounts with distribution, status, behaviour, a map andbreeding habits of each animal or a group of them. Every picture has acaption saying where the photo was taken or a special feature of thatmammal that makes it different from any other. There are no negativecomments I can make on this book because it is clear, informative and withlots of pictures which can help your studies whether you're going to Africaor not! ... Read more

Product Description
Evolution on islands differs in a number of important ways from evolution on mainland areas.  Over millions of years of isolation, exceptional and sometimes bizarre mammals evolved on islands, such as pig-sized elephants and hippos, giant rats and gorilla-sized lemurs that would have been formidable to their mainland ancestors.

This timely and innovative book is the first to offer a much-needed synthesis of recent advances in the exciting field of the evolution and extinction of fossil insular placental mammals. It provides a comprehensive overview of current knowledge on fossil island mammals worldwide, ranging from the Oligocene to the onset of the Holocene.

The book addresses evolutionary processes and key aspects of insular mammal biology, exemplified by a variety of fossil species. The authors discuss the human factor in past extinction events and loss of insular biodiversity.

This accessible and richly illustrated textbook is written for graduate level students and professional researchers in evolutionary biology, palaeontology, biogeography, zoology, and ecology. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Key-Guide to Mammal Skulls and Lower Jaws
I found it very informative and useful.It was written so a layman could clearly understand it.

Found a mammal skull?
This booklet will have you identifying mammal skulls in about 30 minutes. Some skulls are trickier than others and will take careful reading of the glossary to find things such as the occipital crest.

A Key-guide to Mammal Skulls and Lower Jaws:
Subtitle: A nontechnical introduction for beginners.Exactly that. Excellent. Fairly plain english guides like the easiest field manuals. How many/type teeth, skull measurement/proportion, etc; you could identify even without the plain line drawings.Only covers common N. Amer land Mammals. I recommend it for beginning naturalists or biology field students. ... Read more

Product Description
Mammals are the dominant large animals of today, occurring in virtually every environment. This book is an account of the remarkable fossil records that document their origin since the extinction of the dinosaurs. Tracing their evolution over the last 35 million years. For the first time presented in one single volume Kemp unveils the exciting DNA sequence evidence which coupled with fossil evidence challenges current thinking on the relationships amongst mammal and their inferred history.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Excellent, but very high level
Make no mistake, this is a book by an expert for experts.Without a solid background in skeletal and dental anatomy, most of the content of this book will go over the reader's head.That said, for those with the background to understand, this is an excellent reference and introduction to the major themes of mammal evolution.

My favorite thing about this book is that it spends considerable ink on pre-mammalian synapsids and Mesozoic mammals.Most books on mammal evolution seem to pick up the tale at the K-T boundary, ignoring most of the story.The discussion of early mammals and pre-mammals is fantastic, and the author presents thought-provoking hypotheses for the evolution of key mammalian characteristics.

This book probably fits into a fairly narrow niche of readers, but for those readers, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Mammals and their kin
Tom Kemp's book provides a superb, well-written overview of the diversity and evolutionary history of synapsids, the group including mammals. The origin of mammals is now one of the best-documented evolutionary transitions in the fossil record. A leading investigator on this subject, Kemp reviews the numerous changes in features of the skull and postcranial skeleton during this major transition and interprets these changes in functional terms. This is a particularly valuable aspect of Kemp's book. His review of mammalian diversity is an excellent synopsis of the many new data gathered in recent years and is presented within the framework of a phylogenetically based classification. It thus supercedes earlier, outdated treatments of this subject. I definitely recommend Kemp's book for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses. The book also includes an excellent, comprehensive bibliography, which will allow the reader to pursue topics of interest in greater depth. My only criticism is the quality of a number of illustrations; on quite a few figures, lines have faded or vanished during reproduction, and, in a few instances, illustration scans have been greatly distorted during printing. However, these are minor quibbles that do not distract from the overall quality of this book.

A staid performance
This is a major reference book, presumably essential for a specialist but I found that it assumed too much prior knowledge and was totally wedded to the dogma of cladism making it difficult to work out the status of the groups described.I also found that in the references, giants like Alfred Sherwood Romer or for that matter, authors on mammal evolution like Derek Yalden scarecely get a mention.

It should perhaps be retitled the origin and evolution of amniotes leading to the mammals given that about half the book deals with mammal like reptiles.Some of this treatment would be essential but there was far too much on basal tetrapods.When it came to even these, there was no real fire about really interesting organisms like Dimetrodon, or any particular story to light the mind given that as a scientist Kemp is cautious.

The weak classification provided is my main problem with the book.Given that so many of the taxa are unranked in classical cladistic fashion, you don't really know what you are dealing with - whereas the traditional orders of mammals are described as such, supraordinal and subordinal taxa are difficult to make out in the context of rank or major grouping.You end up with hierarchical lists and have to try and work out a great deal of it yourself.I'd find the classification of Benton from Bristol (another major author in the field) far more useful and user friendly.

There is no great enthusiasm shown for any of the scenarios or organisms/taxa in question (except some early amphibians and amniotes) and the illustrations could have been more informative.Kemp argues that the collision of India with Asia could have happened earlier than the Eocene but offers little justification.The contribution of Indian mammals if any from the Cretaceous period is alleged but the discussion is uncritical in the light of violent vulcanism on the subcontinent during the KT boundary.

Sorry, but I would have preferred Romer (VP and evolution) or Carroll's update of Romer.I'd really like a similar book on slightly more traditional lines and hope it turns up.In the meantime, this remains a reference for citing purposes. ... Read more