Mammalogy. 6th ed.

Abstract

Vaughan, T. A., J. N. Ryan, and N. J. Czaplewski. 2015. Mammalogy . 6th ed. Jones & Bartlett, Burlington, Massachusetts, 755 pp. ISBN 978-1-284-03209-3, price (paperback), $141.83. As undoubtedly was the case for many, Vaughan’s Mammalogy was my 1st introduction to the discipline. Indeed my Mammalogy course (at the University of Vermont) shaped my career and convinced me I wanted to become a biologist. It was, therefore, with a great deal of respect that I agreed to write this review. This is a standard classic in mammalogy and the 6th edition will remain so. Although the same overall structure of the 5th edition has been maintained, there are a few changes since the 5th edition. First, Chapters 2 and 3 have swapped places so now the mammal origins chapter precedes the chapter on mammalian characters. This change seems a little awkward to me; it’s far easier to highlight important transitions in the evolution of mammals if students already are familiar with ancestral and derived states. The rest of the chapters are arranged in the same manner (this is both a strength and a weakness, see below) and the Table of Contents is less detailed than that in the 5th edition. Chapter 1 introduces classification and phylogenetics. The example of parsimony applied to nucleotide sequence data is retained from the 5th edition. This would be fine if it were noted that use of parsimony alone is obsolete and statistical model-based approaches were mentioned explicitly (instead of implicitly through the notion of molecular clocks). However, as written, the description of phylogenetic analysis misrepresents the current state of the discipline. The references cited for more information on phylogeny estimation are obsolete or even nonexistent (the authors suggest that PAUP, a software package, explains phylogenetic methods). Chapter 2 describes the origin of mammals and is a mixed bag. There is, once again, an excellent presentation of early synapsids, therapsids, and cynodonts and the description of the evolution of mammalian ear ossicles … Department of Biological Sciences, Box 443051, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83844-3051, USA; e-mail: jacks{at}uidaho.edu.