Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia: Evolution

Abstract

Grzimek’s Animal Life Encyclopedia is a 17-volume set, coveringtheentireanimalkingdom,fromprotozoatomammals. Originally edited by the famous Frankfurt Zoo director and conservationist, Bernhard Grzimek, and translated into English in the early 1970s, the first English edition, consisting of 11 volumes, was published by Van Nostrand Reinhold in both England and the United States. That version was very popular, but after 30 years the series was in urgent need of updating. During that time, thousands of biologists, working in both the field and laboratory, had generated a tremendous amount of new information covering a wide range of species. Recognizing an urgent need to include the new information, the entire collection was updated, reformatted, and completely rewritten by English-speaking experts from 2001 to 2003 under the direction of new owner and publisher, Gale. I had the privilege of serving as the primary Series Editor for that project. However, the project was not complete, as the original series also included three additional topical volumes: Ethology (animal behavior), Ecology, and Evolution