WALKER’S MAMMALS OF THE WORLD

-->

Nonfiction
Diverse fauna down under

WALKER’S MAMMALS OF THE WORLD:
Monotremes, Marsupials, Afrotherians, Xenarthrans, and Sundatherians
By Ronald M. Nowak
757 pp. Johns Hopkins University Press

Reviewed by David E. Hoekenga, M. D.

Walker’s First Edition of Mammals of the World has been a treasured possession of mine since it was published in 1964. Two volumes with black and white illustrations in a black slipcase followed me as a zoology student and then later in medical school as an amateur naturalist. With over five thousand mammals alive in the world today, keeping track of them on seven continents is no easy task.

I hoped to be able to compare the new volume at 750-plus pages to the first volume of my old Walker’s, but the new volume works differently. It is based on the oldest evolutionary clades or groupings, starting with the echidnas and platypuses – egg-layers all. Then come Tasmanian devils and bandicoots. None of these creatures are terribly familiar, but the next family is. It consists of the koala, wombats, possums, wallabies and kangaroos. If you think most of these orders dwell down under in Australia, New Zealand and New Guinea, you would be correct, with the single exception of the American Opossum. The rabbit-like red-bellied and red-necked pademelon appears in parts of Australia and more abundantly in New Guinea weighing up to 12 kilograms).

In the middle of the volume, the focus shifts to Africa with the order Afrosoricida or tenrecs and golden moles. Most of the moles are sightless. Then a group of tapering nosed mouse-like creatures with the sonorous name of sengi. Next comes the compact and furtive rock hyrax, which I finally spotted on my fifth trip to Africa. Perhaps it’s best known for the trick question ask of all beginning zoology students what is the closest relative of the mighty elephant? The diminutive hyrax, of course.

After so many chapters spent on mammals two three inches long, the elephants get seventy-four pages all to themselves.

The next order has the prettiest name, Sirenia, and includes the aquatic species the dugong, Steller’s sea cow, and manatees. A lot of the orders have unpronounceable names such as ornithorhynchidae – the duck-billed platypus, or the chaeropodidae – the pig-footed bandicoot. Steller was the talented naturalist who froze to death outside a bar in Russia (see my review of Island of the Blue Foxes).

One of the biggest differences between this edition of Walker’s and the first one is that all the illustrations are in color. It took seven years to produce this volume, and the editor anticipates three or four more. Since there are 5,512 mammals in the world, a few more may become extinct before the work at Johns Hopkins is finished.

In the section on elephantidae the authors write,

Western pointed out that many field studies of elephants have contributed to a negative image of the ecology of the species, but only because the investigations dealt with artificially compressed species that were said to be damaging parks or commercial forests. He explained that the elephant has a key role throughout the savannah and tropical forest zones that it inhabits. When numbers and seasonal movements are natural, the elephant opens up dense woodland, prevents the spread of brush, and makes gaps through the jungle. It thereby allows the penetration of sunlight, promotes the growth of a great variety of plant species, and promotes the growth of a great variety of plant species, and encourages a more abundant and more diverse fauna of smaller animals. If this role is applied across its entire original range, the elephant has been more important than any other species than people in shaping the ecology of Africa. Its loss will reduce biodiversity and increase extinction rates throughout the continent.

This big, beautiful volume is the first of a projected series will eventually include lions, tigers and bears. This encyclopedic volume is for serious zoologists and amateurs who live down under. A better choice for an American amateur zoologist might be the less pricey Princeton Encyclopedia of Mammals.