Wilson, Don E.

Volume 8 of the Handbook of Mammals of the World (HMW) contains an unusual compilation of important but smaller orders that we now know have either distant or nearly no taxonomic relationships. They include armadillos, sloths and anteaters. 

Volume 7 of the Handbook of Mammals of the World (HMW) covers 9 families of Rodents. 

Volume 6 of the Handbook of Mammals of the World (HMW) covers 27 families in two orders, lagomorphs and most of the families of the order Rodentia. 

Platypus, opossums, kangaroos, koalas...Monotremes and marsupials include a host of animals that have intrigued mammal fanciers for centuries. Monotremes are a very distinctive ancient group of mammals with only a handful of extant species in Australia and New Guinea and marsupials, with roots in South America, likely reached Australia via Antarctica some 50 million years ago. With relatives remaining in America, Marsupials have adapted to an amazing diversity of lifestyles and habitats.

Humankind has long felt a kinship of ocean-dwelling mammals, and human culture, customs, and literature abound with sea mammal lore. This volume covers 19 families in 3 orders. Sirenians (like manatees) are evolutionarily distant from both pinnipeds (meaning "fin-footed") and cetaceans, but ecological similarity argues for keeping these three groups together in one volume. The bulk of the volume is devoted to the cetaceans, by far the largest group of mammals inhabiting the oceans of the world full time. 

Everybody knows that humans are members of the mammalian Order Primates, but ask somebody to name some of our cousins and they would at best come up with five or six of the most widely known. This volume counts more than 470 of them: 138 species of prosimians - the lemurs, lorises, pottos and tarsiers in Africa and Asia; 156 species of monkeys in the New World tropics; another 158 monkeys in the Old World tropics; and 25 apes, 19 of them gibbons along with six chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans.