ULTIMATE MAMMALPEDIA

Earth’s furry, milk-producing, hinge-jawed denizens, more familiarly known as mammals, get a deep dive in this extensive encyclopedia.

Elegant visions of a muscular tiger, a wide-eyed opossum, and narwhals socializing in a deep-blue ocean—the thoughtfully selected images presented here are high-definition visual treats. Accompanying the images, many of them full-page, is dense exposition that relates information about each of the animal species’ lives, detailing facts about habitat, social behaviors, diet, and interspecies interactions. Following a general introduction to mammals, the various types of animals are flexibly grouped into seven chapters: carnivores, ungulates, marsupials, rodents, oceangoing mammals (including polar bears), primates, and finally, “Mammal Oddities,” those that don’t easily fit into the other groups, such as monotremes, rabbits, and mammals that fly. Sprinkled throughout are features focused on evolutionary diversity (there are 70 species of antelope in Africa alone!), domesticated mammals, and long-extinct mammalian ancestors. The sheer quantity of information may pose a challenge for less-advanced readers and curious skimmers seeking flashy facts. Some concepts could have been more fully illuminated through infographics, and some textual descriptions beg for supplementation with images showing more active animal behavior to supplement the almost posed stillness of many of the photographs.

A glossy, gorgeous, textually rich tome for animal lovers to get lost in.