Lynx Nature Books, based in Barcelona, is a

publishing company Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

specializing in

ornithology Ornithology, from Ancient Greek ὄρνις (''órnis''), meaning "bird", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study", is a branch of zoology dedicated to the study of birds. Several aspects of ornithology differ from related discip ...

and

natural history Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

. The company was founded in 1989. It was formerly named Lynx Edicions.

History

Lynx Nature Books was founded as Lynx Edicions in

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

by , a lawyer and collector; , a naturalist; and , a medical doctor and writer. The company has been based in the Bellaterra district of

Cerdanyola del Vallès Cerdanyola del Vallès () is a municipality in the ''comarca'' of the Vallès Occidental in Catalonia, Spain. It is situated on the north side of the Collserola ridge. The town is served by the A-7 and C-58 motorways, the N-150 road and the Ren ...

since 2002.

Books

Lynx Nature Books publishes the ''

Handbook of the Birds of the World The ''Handbook of the Birds of the World'' (HBW) is a multi-volume series produced by the Spanish publishing house Lynx Edicions in partnership with BirdLife International. It is the first handbook to cover every known living species of bird. ...

'', a 16-volume series completed in 2012 that documents for the first time in a single work an entire animal

class Class, Classes, or The Class may refer to: Common uses not otherwise categorized * Class (biology), a taxonomic rank * Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects * Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used d ...

, illustrating and treating in detail all the species of that class. No such comprehensive work had been completed before for this or any other group in the

animal Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the Biology, biological Kingdom (biology), kingdom Animalia (). With few exceptions, animals heterotroph, consume organic material, Cellular respiration#Aerobic respiration, breathe oxygen, ...

kingdom. A condensed, single-volume version of the series was published in 2020 as ''All the Birds of the World''. Similarly, Lynx publishes the ''

Handbook of the Mammals of the World ''Handbook of the Mammals of the World'' (''HMW'') is a book series from the publisher Lynx Edicions. The nine volumes were published from 2009 to 2019. Each mammal family is assessed in a full text introduction with photographs and each species ...

'', a nine-volume undertaking like the work on birds published between 2009 and 2019. An updated two-volume set with taxonomic revisions was released in 2020 as the ''Illustrated Checklist of the Mammals of the World'', and a condensed, single-volume version of the series was published in 2023 as ''All the Mammals of the World''. Lynx, since 2018, has published field guides to birds of various regions; and '' Birds of South Asia: The Ripley Guide'', was published in collaboration with the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...

Internet Bird Collection

In 2002, as a complement to the ''

'', and with the ultimate goal of disseminating knowledge about the world's avifauna, Lynx Edicions started the '' Internet Bird Collection'' (IBC). This was a free-access, online audiovisual library of footage of the world's birds which hosted videos, photographs, and recordings illustrating various biological traits (e.g. subspecies, plumage, feeding, breeding, etc.) for 96% of all bird species. It was a non-profit endeavour fuelled by material from more than one hundred contributors around the world. In 2020 the IBC was incorporated into the

Cornell Lab of Ornithology The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is a member-supported unit of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, which studies birds and other wildlife. It is housed in the Imogene Powers Johnson Center for Birds and Biodiversity in Sapsucker Woods Sanctuar ...

's Macaulay Library, which now hosts all of the content previously stored on the IBC.

References

External links

*
Internet Bird Collection
at The Macaulay Library Ornithological publishing companies Book publishing companies of Spain Cerdanyola del Vallès Companies based in Catalonia {{publisher-stub