The Simon & Schuster Encyclopedia of Animals: A Visual Who's Who of the World's Creatures

Dr. Philip Whitfield, lecturer in Zoology at King's College, London, has compiled this weighty, authoritative, and beautiful volume about the five classes of vertebrates: mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fishes. An overview of each class serves as an introduction to its members and includes descriptions of the class's distinguishing features, history, and major families, plus cladograms showing the possible phylogenic relationships within the class. Because most readers are more comfortable with the traditional classifications of kingdom, phylum, order, etc., within the chapters themselves the families are arranged in accordance with that system. The section on each family, in turn, begins with a brief overview of the family, followed by representative examples of family members. Each included species is then described separately. The entry includes a full-color painting of the animal, the animal's common and scientific name, its size, breeding patterns, feeding habits, geographic range, and more. Relevant controversies of classification are also mentioned; for example, Whitfield notes that zoologists have recently decided to move the Lagomorpha (rabbits, hares, and pikas) out of the rodent order and grant them status as an order unto themselves. If you haven't been keeping track of who is related to whom, a detailed index with both common and scientific names alphabetized together can help you find the animals you seek. With its more than 2,000 beautiful illustrations and informative text on everything from Aardvark to Zosterops japonicus (a.k.a. the Japanese White-eye, a small green bird), The Encyclopedia of Animals is an excellent reference tool--and a browser's delight. --C.B. Delaney