25 November 2025

Review of Mammals of the Southwestern United States (Lynx Nature Books)

I just received a copy of Mammals of the Southwestern United States by Troy L. Best and John L. Hunt: a ‘Biology of Native and Some Extirpated, Extinct, and Introduced Species’.

At over 600 pages this new book falls somewhere between a field guide and an encyclopedia, a hybrid format which works pretty well. It covers the mammals of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma, with photos and information on each species including measurements, diet and behaviour.

Some of this information will be in whatever field guide you already have but its useful to get updated (I assume) measurement averages for some of the smaller mammals.

The detailed information on habitat preferences is useful too for those of us who want to go out looking for a Highland Coarse-haired Pocket Mouse or a Southern Grasshopper Mouse. Though if you are as ignorant as I am about the vegetation you are going to need to befriend a botanist to accompany you.

Pictures of skulls and dental formula are less useful for most of us mammalwatchers but I enjoyed some of the interesting snippets of information in the behaviour sections in particular.

The book includes accounts for the very many exotics in the region. I had no idea there are Himalayan Tahrs in New Mexico and Warthogs in Texas .. though I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. It was interesting to see entries for species like Caribbean Monk Sea (I was shocked to see a photo of this species which I assumed had been hundreds of years ago) as well as entries for Jaguarundi, Jaguar and – remarkably – a Margay (one record from almost 200 years ago in Texas!).

The range maps are not particularly helpful and I would love to have seen a “best places to see” section for each species as this is something I am sure both authors – who are among the southwest’s leading mammalogists – would have great information on. But I guess we have mammalwatching.com for that.

So all in all this is a nice edition to my bookshelf.

Mammals of the Southwestern United States is available at Lynx Nature and elsewhere.

Jon

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Jon Hall
Genetically Welsh, spiritually Australian, currently in New York City. I’ve also lived and worked in London, Canberra, Paris and Lusaka, and watched mammals in over 100 countries.
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