Book Review: All the World’s Primates, edited by Noel Rowe and Marc Myers
I am not sure how I managed to miss this wonderful book, and if I didn’t know about it until now then perhaps it will come as a surprise to others too. Noel Rowe’s and Marc Myer’s 2016 work covers all of the world’s primates: 505 species as of 2016. Noel is a photographer who focuses on primates and in 1992 he set up Primate Conservation Inc (PMI) after “witnessing the destruction of a lowland forest reserve in Madagascar”. He kindly sent me a copy of this splendid encyclopedia.
At 800 pages you can’t really describe this as a field guide but it does contain exactly the information you would want in a field guide. Each species’ entry comes with detailed range maps, photographs or illustrations and details of distinguishing characteristics, habits and taxonomy.
The taxonomy must have been a particular challenge to keep up with during the production of this book given how fast primate taxonomy is changing. Jane Goodall talks about this in her foreword to the book, noting that when she wrote the foreword to Noel’s 1996 Pictorial Guide to the Living Primates, there were 234 known species. Twenty years later the number had more than doubled. Things have stabilised considerably since 2016 but are still changing and there are now thought to be another 30 or so species.
As well as introductions from Russ Mittermeier and Anthony Rylands the book has a guide to primate taxonomy from the late Colin Groves and ideas on how you can support conservation (and yes ecotourism is included).
If you are in the USA then the best place to buy the book is via this link – which should be cheaper than Amazon and includes free shipping. Alternatively, you can join the companion website alltheworldsprimates.org which is updated annually and has more information, references, photos, video and audio. It also allows you to look at primate lists for each country. Lifetime access to the site requires a donation to PCI of $39.95. For a donation of $19.95 you can access the website for 5 months (one semester). If you buy the book then you can get access for free!
Both the book and the site are wonderful resources, guaranteed to put a smile on every primatewatcher’s face and have them planning their next trip. So if you want to make that special primatewatcher in your life happy … or dare I say it encourage them to leave you in peace for two weeks … then look no further.
Jon
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