Since the global pandemic of Novel Covid-19 has brought human society to a veritable stand-still, a number of very worthy new books of natural history have met their scheduled dates of publication to the sound of crickets. Author tours have been cancelled; for more academically-focused titles, lectures have been as well. Bookshops are largely shuttered and doing their best to struggle on via drive-by or on-line sales. Even the monolithic Amazon.com has been hobbled into month-forward delivery dates. Nevertheless, I live in hope that one day this will all be behind us. The bookshops will once again re-open, shipments of new books will be winging their respective ways in all directions, and we will once again rejoice in the freedom of movement that I suspect none of us will ever take for granted again.
When this day comes, I hope that all those interested in improving their understanding of the planet’s mammals will take note that during our collective social hibernation, a monumental book on the topic of mammalogy had been published in its fifth edition by Johns Hopkins University Press.
Completely revised and updated, the new Mammalogy; Adaptation, Diversity, Ecology (fifth edition) includes:
- chapters rearranged and grouped to best reflect phylogenetic relationships, with updated numbers of genera and species for each family
- updated mammalian structural and functional adaptations, as well as ordinal fossil histories
- recent advances in mammalian phylogeny, biogeography, social behavior, and ecology, with 12 new or revised cladograms reflecting current research findings
- new breakout boxes on novel or unique aspects of mammals
- new work on female post-copulatory mate choice, cooperative behaviors, group defense, and the role of the vomeronasal system
- discussions of the current implications of climate change and other anthropogenic factors for mammals
Be assured, this will be on my short list of shelf-strength testing volumes to be acquired at the first opportunity following my once again being set at liberty.
If you enjoyed reading this, please consider signing up for The Well-read Naturalist's newsletter. You'll receive a helpful list of recently published reviews, short essays, and notes about books in your e-mail inbox once each fortnight.
