Customer Reviews

Smithsonian Handbooks: Mammals (Smithsonian Handbooks)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I highly recommend this book as a photo-encyclopedic guide to mammals for children, students and adults who have a general interest in mammals. My review for this book is based on its use as an educational reference guide, not as a guide that one would carry with them out in the field. (It might be suitable for that use, but I am not qualified to review it in that manner.) We use this guide with our son, and I have given it as a gift to children interested in mammals, after looking at all of the top mammal guides listed on Amazon and in Borders.

The key selling point for me is the 1000+ close-up color pictures of more than 450 species in the handbook. Every entry has at least one picture. The text is concise and informative. The book starts with informative introductory sections with excellent explanatory text and photos on "What is a Mammal", "Evolution", "Diversity", "Anatomy", "Reproduction", "Social Groups", "Sense and Communication", "Locomotion", "Feeding", "Desert Mammals", "Grassland Mammals", "Forest Mammals", "Polar and Mountain Mammals", "Aquatic Mammals", "Watching Mammals", "Threatened Mammals","Conservation", "Mammals and Humans", and "Classification"

The book covers the 21 different orders that make up the class Mammalia. Within each of these orders, individual species entries are arranged according to the family they belong to. Each entry includes the following information: scientific family name, scientific name of species, common name of species, common name of order, current population status of species in the wild, map of area or areas where species may be found, food eaten by species, average number of young, gestation period, social grouping of species, details of appearance and behavior, body size, tail length, weight in imperial and metric units, information on distribution and habits, photograph of species with annotations pointing out specific features.

The book is engaging, easy to use, and captivates the user. It will satisfy the mammal enthusiast and provide many hours of exploration. Having looked at all the other top name brand guides, I think that a hobbyist or mammal tracker might find it a bit glitzy, as opposed to a detailed field guide. But it certainly deserves a place on the shelf for mammals enthusiasts. It is suitable for young children (who can flip through, find a picture, and have the information read to them), students and adults.

While this book is certainly not comprehensive (especially in regards to the rodents and bats), it has hundreds of crisp, clear photos. The descriptions for each species is brief, but there are still many interesting facts to learn from the text.
I bought this book mainly for its value as a photographic reference (I'm a visual artist) and becaus I particularly love small mammals and this book has plenty of animals that even I wasn't totally familiar with.
My only complaint about this book is the sort of briefness of it; I honestly think they could have squeezed in a few more species, but they did manage to get most of the important ones, and I believe all of the families are at least represented.
This is a great book for both kids who like to look at pictures and learn about animals and for adults who appreciate the wonders of nature.

I looked for this kind of book my whole life, I think. It includes all the less-known species that most books avoid because they are "too exotic", such as olingo, but also the species found in familiar areas around home (wood mice, water vole), so you can see that your region is an important part of the world.
For a book of this size, it basically has everything in it. Of course, volumes can be told about each of the species, but this is the most comprehensive work on mammals of the world, packed into a medium-sized volume, that I have ever seen.

Our then-3-year-old son originally read the Insects book and carried it around with him everywhere (it stayed on his bed stairs at night!), excitedly pointing out insects and bugs he found in our yard. We checked out some others from the library and decided to buy the rest of them as they're wonderful reference books and we wanted to foster our son's love for learning.

He love this Mammals book, too, as many of the animals in it are new to him. He'll compare them to ones in his other books and asks me to give facts about this or that animal. It's thorough, descriptive, has vibrant and detailed pictures, and is very durable (we own the "turtleback" versions, which have harder covers than paperback ones). This set will last for years and encourage our sons (our 2-year old loves them, too, especially the Reptiles one) to explore the world around them, both in books and outside.

My 7 AND 4 year olds LOVES this book! The photos are great (better than illustrations) and I can read all the details to him. Every little boy should have this set of books!

How could this book on mammals not include an elk? Beautiful presentation of most other mammals otherwise but not include an elk, not like it's a rare mammmal.

the product came in 3 days before I expected it to come. The book I got was in great condition and minimal book wear.

these books are the very best if you want accuracy,i plan to have the entire collection of them by years end.