Marine Mammals of the World: A Comprehensive Guide to Their Identification
Published on 11. December 2007
Book
Hardback
592 pages
978-0-12-383853-7 (ISBN)
Description
With coverage on all the marine mammals of the world, authors Jefferson, Webber, and Pitman have created a user-friendly guide to identify marine mammals alive in nature (at sea or on the beach), dead specimens "in hand?, and also to identify marine mammals based on features of the skull. This handy guide provides marine biologists and interested lay people with detailed descriptions of diagnostic features, illustrations of external appearance, beautiful photographs, dichotomous keys, and more. Full color illustrations and vivid photographs of every living marine mammal species are incorporated, as well as comprehendible maps showing a range of information. For readers who desire further consultation, authors have included a list of literature references at the end of each species account. For an enhanced understanding of habitation, this guide also includes recognizable geographic forms described separately with colorful paintings and photographs. All of these essential tools provided make Marine Mammals of the World the most detailed and authoritative guide available!
Reviews / Votes
"An excellent addition to the library of any wildlife disease professional, providing all the current information on basic species identification needed to identify, and have a basic understanding of, a marine mammal observed at sea or on the necropsy table. The guide is useful for students, biologists, managers, and veterinarians alike. It stands out from the many other smaller or older field guides to marine mammals currently available because of its breadth of information, its beautiful illustrations, and its carefully constructed dichotomous keys. I thoroughly recommend it to all marine mammal enthusiasts as a quintessential guide to species identification."- Frances Gulland, Director, Marine Mammal Center; Review in the Journal of Wildlife Diseases
"This guide is the most comprehensive [among the competition] and, to my mind, the best. ... I recommend this comprehensive and up-to-date guide to every budding as well as serious marine mammalogist."
- Bernd Wursig, Regents Professor and Chair of the Marine Biology Graduate Program,
Texas A&M University; Review in Aquatic Mammals
[T]ruly is a comprehensive guide to the identification of the world's marine mammals. ... [T]he authors compiled a unique combination of identification tools into a single volume: detailed species accounts, descriptive photographs, dichotomous keys, and trait comparison tables. ... Marine Mammals of the World: A Comprehensive Guide to Their Identification is the one book that anyone seeking to identify the world's marine mammals-dead or alive-should have on their shelf. ... Most helpfully, the text ... is supported by a generous number of high-quality illustrations and photographs that show the diagnostic physical and behavioral characteristics of each species from a variety of angles. ... [T]he dichotomous keys and comparison tables in the back put this guide on a utilitarian plane above other guides. [It] will be a welcome addition to any library. The authors pooled their vast observational experience to provide its users a single identification guide that is both utilitarian and esthetically pleasing."
- Kate Wynne, Fisheries Technology Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks;
Review in Marine Mammal Science, published by the Society for Marine Mammalogy
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
San Diego
United States
Publishing group
Elsevier Science Publishing Co Inc
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Marine biologists, laypeople interested in a guide to marine mammals.
Dimensions
Height: 246 mm
Width: 189 mm
Weight
1200 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-12-383853-7 (9780123838537)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
New editions
Marc A. Webber | Thomas Allen Jefferson | Robert L. Pitman
Marine Mammals of the World
A Comprehensive Guide to Their Identification
Book
09/2015
2nd Edition
Academic Press
€84.50
Article exhausted; check for reprint
Persons
Dr. Thomas Jefferson's main interests are the development of marine mammal identification aids, and the systematics and population ecology of the more poorly known species of dolphins and porpoises. His work since receiving his PhD in 1983 has been related to conservation and management of marine mammals threatened by human activities. His current primary research focuses on the conservation biology of Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin (Sousa chinensis) and finless porpoise (Neophocaena phocaenoides) populations in Hong Kong and surrounding waters. I am also working on other projects looking at the systematics and ecology of these species throughout their ranges. In addition, I am involved in many other projects, including those on the conservation of the critically endangered vaquita (Phocoena sinus) and on the taxonomy and population ecology of common dolphins (Delphinus spp.) Marc Webber is a marine mammal specialist with an undergraduate and graduate degree from San Francisco State University. He has worked as a biologist and refuge manager for non-profit organizations and the US government for his entire career in places all over the country. Among other accomplishments, Dr. Webber has worked with stranded marine mammals, conducted marine mammal and seabird studies by ship and aircraft for NMFS and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service in the North and South Pacific, North Atlantic, and Arctic, studied Monk Seals in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands, Northern Fur Seals at San Miguel and the Pribilof Islands, Walrus in the Bering and Chukchi Seas, Harp Seals in Russia, and Dusky Dolphins in New Zealand. He has done extensive work with stranded marine mammals, co-authored many journal articles and book chapters, and conducted marine mammal and seabird ship and aircraft surveys over most oceans of the world. Robert L. Pitman is a marine biologist at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, California,and has published extensively on marine birds and mammals. Since 1976 he has averaged 6 months a yearat sea on research vessels operating in all the world's oceans. His current research interests include ecologyand systematics of killer whales in Antarctica and Australia.
Content
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Basic Marine Mammal Biology
Chapter 3: Taxonomic Groupings Above the Species Level
Chapter 4: Cetaceans
Chapter 5: Pinnipeds
Chapter 6: Sirenian and Other Species
Chapter 7: Extinct Species
Chapter 8: Dichotomous Identification Keys
Chapter 9: Summaries of Characters for Similar Species
Chapter 2: Basic Marine Mammal Biology
Chapter 3: Taxonomic Groupings Above the Species Level
Chapter 4: Cetaceans
Chapter 5: Pinnipeds
Chapter 6: Sirenian and Other Species
Chapter 7: Extinct Species
Chapter 8: Dichotomous Identification Keys
Chapter 9: Summaries of Characters for Similar Species