| | Whales Dolphins and Porpoises |  | Author: Sir Richard And Bryden, Dr. M.m.(editors) Harrison
Creator: Tony Pyrzakowski
Publisher: Weldon Owen, Inc.
Category: Book
Buy Used: $23.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Media: Hardcover
ASIN: B000GWOM4M
Publication Date: 1994
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Publisher: Weldon Owen, Inc.Date of Publication: 1994Binding: Hard CoverCondition: Good/GoodDescription: 240 pgs. Folio. DJ has slight edge and shelf wear. Cover Boards have wear along edge and spine bottoms. Profusely illustrated, a tight copy. An illustrated Encyclopedic Survey by International Experts.
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| Customer Reviews:
 3.5 Stars for a Still Great Coffee Table Book, Getting Dusty June 27, 2008
The many great pictures and drawings aren't the only attraction of this oversized book. The text is also exhaustive for the general reader. It covers evolution, taxonomy, anatomy, behavior, intelligence, relationships with humans for better or worse and how to help in strandings.
However, it isn't really up to date. I read the German edition of 2004, which didn't tell anywhere that the English original must have been written in 1987 or 1988, which only becomes apparent from an holistic view of the context of the individual chapters. The intelligence testing is as rudimentary as the drawings and explanations of the genitalia. The latter is (or would be) indeed interesting as whales have so-called genital pouches. The book doesn't go into the consequences of realization, when calling this pouch prepuce in males and vulva in females. The text mentions a big prostate gland, yet, it is missing completely in the drawing. At the time, as the book confesses, little was known about the penis as a sensory organ (beyond the obvious penile senses). And so not much is mentioned about that. The book is also apologetic about back then "modern" delphinariums. Well, let's say they are still more controversial in real life than depicted. The taxonomy may be a bit dated, too, actually, some branches are still debated today. For exambple the book lists 13 whale families. There may be 14, dividing the sperm whale species (or not) into two families. However, in my edition, the text contradicts the diagram, writing of only 8 families. By the way: The title may come in handy for popular purposes, but is a bit misleading. After all, dolphins and porpoises ARE whales. So the title might have been better "Dolphins, Porpoises and Other Whales" or simply "Whales". (In German, the porpoises have been dropped from the title as there is not really even a word for them other than dolphins, too.)
On the evolution of whales you may wanna get the 2001 coffee table update Walking with Prehistoric Beasts. The depiction of sexuality remains heterocentristic to the point of claiming ritualised fights of males over females in what in reality seems to be one of the homosexual behaviors (rolling over) according to the one decade update Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity (Stonewall Inn Editions). There you may read up on female and male homosexual details for many whale species (including dolphins). Ironically, the only reference to homosexuality in whales in this reviewed book is the quoted literature of classical Greece and Rome - from dolphin to young lad. Or that may be the accidental, male-centristic translation in my German edition of the neutral English translation. (Even though, the stories most probably are indeed homosexual in the Greek original.) In "Biological Exuberance" are also descriptions of matriarchal clans. The book reviewed here presents patriarchal clans only. Irritatingly, in addition it mentions within the text many cases of bigger males, but in the brief entry descriptions the opposite seems to be the case in 9 species, compared to only 7 species with really the males getting larger. (Add 23 unspecified lengths according to gender.)
The bottom line is: A good book. But definitely not the only one you ever need to read about whales.
 Information, Information, Information. May 17, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Any person who purchases a coffee table book of this size should expect to pay a fair price for the product. In return for that payment, they have every right to expect a fully detailed account of the Whale and it's smaller cousins. With this product, that is exactly what they get.
This book has it all - and a lot more besides. The book commences with the evolution of the Whale, different kinds of Whales, Baleen Whales, Toothed Whales and their distribution and ecology. It's a great start - where even the expert will learn something. More importantly, the graphics are outstanding, the colour photographs are top notch and everything is written is a style which will appeal to expert and amateur alike.
Maintaining those same standards, the next section deals with anatomy, adaptation to the aquatic environment, senses, reproduction, behaviour and intelligence. Finally, in this most excellently crafted work, we find; Whales in art and literature, history of Whaling, Whales and Dolphins in captivity, human contact and strandings. Even the Appendices at the end make interesting reading.
For me, this book is likely to remain my preferred reference source on the subject and I can do no more than congratulate all those involved with the production of an excellent work.
Probably the only book on Whales most people will ever need.
NM
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Wildlife, nature and the Environment
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