Reviewed by Blandine Hautier (Bonn, Germany)
Reviewed by Blandine Hautier (Bonn, Germany)
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Reviewed by Paul Strother (Boston College Weston Observatory)
Reviewed by Paul Strother (Boston College Weston Observatory)
Reviewed by Bruce Rothschild (Indiana University Health, formerly Carnegie Museum of Natural History)
Reviewed by Phil Novack-Gottshall (Benedictine University, Lisle, IL)
Reviewed by Andrej Spiridonov (Vilnius University, Lithuania & Nature Research Centre, Lithuania)
Reviewed by Ephraim Nissan (London, England)
Reviewed by James Farlow (Purdue University Fort Wayne, Fort Wayne, IN)
Reviewed by Phil Novack-Gottshall (Benedictine University, Lisle, IL)
This lavishly illustrated, large-format book provides a full-rounded treatment of all extant penguin species, but it also is an eye-opener on fossil and subfossil penguin species. Part 1 is by Tui de Roy, and covers their life cycle, the “jackass” group of braying penguins, Antarctica’s three long-tailed species (the Adélie, chinstrap, and Gentoo penguins), the crested penguins, the rockhoppers, the Little penguin of Oceania, and finally the King and Emperor penguins of Antarctica.
Julie Cornthwaite authored Part 3, surveying all species one by one, in profiles sharing their structure. Part 2 instead, “Science and Conservation”, is edited by Mark Jones, and comprises 17 chapters (all but the first, of just two pages) by different scholars. For example, “March of the Fossil Penguins” by Daniel Ksepka (pp. 158–159), and Matthew Shawkey’s “Penguin Colours and Pigments” (pp. 162–163), which also discusses their evolution (a glitch chopped off its last line): “melanosomes from [the 36-million-year-old] Inkayacu [giant penguin found mummified (p. 159)] were smaller than those from modern penguins, and more similar in size and shape to those of other birds” (p. 162): perhaps larger melanosomes make feathers stiffer. “Second, Inkayacu’s plumage lacked countershading. Instead it had a brown underside and grey back” (162). Seals were diversifying, and countershading may have evolved as a response to increasing predation pressure.
Reviewed by Andrej Spiridonov (Vilnius University, Lithuania & Nature Research Centre, Lithuania)