Curassows and Related Birds. Second Edition.— Jean Delacour and Dean Amadon, with updated chapter by Josep del Hoyo and Anna Motis. 2004. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona, and American Museum of Natural History, New York. 476 pp., 56 color plates, 61 black and white figures, photographs and maps. ISBN 84-87334-64-4. $75.00 (cloth).

Curassows, guans and piping-guans, and chachalacas of the Family Cracidae are a group of about 50 species, many of which are endangered. These Neotropical galliform birds are mainly found in rain and cloud forests, and sometimes in drier deciduous woodlands, where their presence indicates that the area has not been severely disturbed. Thirty years ago, a book was dedicated to the natural history of this group (Delacour and Amadon 1973), and became the most authoritative reference on cracids. The amount of information on morphological description, distribution, habitat, and behavior for all of its recognized species and subspecies was complemented with the authors' personal stories and field observations. Now, this classic book has been re-edited entirely, with correction of typographic and toponymic errors, addition of new color plates, and inclusion of an entirely new update chapter covering most of what has been discovered about cracids in the last 30 years.

The book is divided into three parts. The first part is called Introductory Chapters and contains 11 chapters providing an overview of cracids. It starts with a general introduction in chapter 1, followed by a brief systematic classification in chapter 2. This chapter has a tree-like drawing depicting the possible genus-level relationships, which was not based on modern cladistic methods, but instead represents Delacour and Amadon's interpretation of cracid evolutionary relationships. Chapters 3 to 6 contain descriptions of plumage, molt, wattles and other display characters, and variation of the trachea (windpipe), which is enlarged especially in chachalacas. Comparative comments on similarities and differences among different groups of cracids are often provided. Chapters 7–9 are dedicated to the reproductive behavior of chachalacas, guans, and curassows. These chapters contain information, ranging from vocalizations to reproduction, that has been gleaned from observations of behavior from several species in the wild or in captivity. Chapter 10 presents a brief discussion on captive breeding, including how these birds should be kept in captivity, and notes on conservation of this group. Finally, Chapter 11 provides excerpts of Amadon's field notebook reporting a trip to Venezuela in 1968.

The second part of the book contains a systematic key to identify genera and species, and provides species accounts, which include geographic ranges where the birds are found, detailed morphological descriptions, habitat requirements, and data on whether these birds have been kept in captivity around the world, and if so, whether reproductive success has been achieved. These first two parts are largely illustrated with distribution maps, black and white photographs, and drawings. The distribution maps presented throughout the book are those originally published in 1973; even though more precise data are available nowadays, they were not updated. Most illustrations in this book are credited to Albert E. Gilbert, who also coordinated the publication of this second edition.

The third part of the book is the bibliography. In addition to listing an extensive number of formal publications used to gather the information contained in the first two parts of the book, it also provides a list of original citations for all genera and species and a glossary of common and scientific names. The glossary makes it easier to understand why some species are named the way they are. A series of color plates follows the glossary. The first five plates by Àngels Jutglar and Francesc Jutglar illustrate all recognized species and subspecies of cracids, and were originally published in volume 2 of the Handbook of the Birds of the World (del Hoyo et al. 1994). Although drawn to scale, a scale is not provided with the illustrations in this edition. Following the first five plates, most plates are reprinted from the first edition, but several beautiful new plates illustrating downy young cracid chicks, which are represented at or near life size, have been added. Those who have seen cracids in the wild, or in zoos or other captive facilities around the world, would agree that the details given in the plates are incredibly realistic.

The information contained in the reprint of the original book is mostly still valid today. However, updated information is provided in the last part of the new edition, which was written by Josep del Hoyo and Anna Motis. In this new update chapter, the authors summarize published and unpublished data gathered for each one of the cracid species since the publication of the first edition. The level of attention paid to some species (for example, the Horned-Guan [Oreophasis derbianus] in Mexico and Guatemala or the Alagoas Curassow [Mitu mitu] of northeastern Brazil) in the last 30 years may have been inspired by the lack of knowledge about them at the time this book was first published. I think one of the main contributions of this update is to review recent work on cracid conservation. Sadly, cracid populations seem to be declining throughout their original ranges. In the last few years, extensive field work has been undertaken to determine the status of the most endangered cracids, and successful captive and reintroduction programs have been initiated, and may be key to saving this group from extinction. Certainly, this update chapter will highlight which species need more urgent conservation efforts until the next Cracid Action Plan (Brooks and Strahl 2000) for the years ahead is published.

Unfortunately, recent advances in cracid systematics from phylogenetic relationships of genera, based on molecular analysis of mitochondrial and nuclear genes (Pereira et al. 2002) and osteological characteristics (Silveira 2003), are only briefly mentioned in this chapter. The authors seem to have preferred not to present these phylogenies, as they are somewhat incongruent. Although it is not the scope of this book to investigate the differences between these two phylogenetic hypotheses among genera, their inclusion would give the readers an opportunity to compare the current phylogenetic knowledge with Delacour and Amadon's interpretation of genera relationships presented in the first part of the book. Moreover, the now well-established relationships of cracids to other Galliformes were ignored in this new edition (Dimcheff et al. 2002, Dyke et al. 2003). After the second edition of Curassows and Related Birds was published, more advances in cracid evolution and biogeography became available for curassows (Pereira and Baker 2004) and piping-guans (Grau et al. 2005), based on DNA sequence data.

Although my view is biased towards a comparative evolutionary approach, which I feel is missing in this book, this second edition will certainly be a useful and reliable reference for birders, cracidologists, field ornithologists, and conservation biologists, among others, in the years to come.