Authoritative and beautiful, written by expert zoologists and illustrated with nearly two thousand original full-color paintings by the world's finest wildlife artists, "The Simon & Schuster Encyclopedia of Animals" is one of the most extraordinary references ever published. No other guide to the animal world combines such comprehensiveness, consistency of style, and elegance. This catalogue of the animal world depicts species in detail -- mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish -- illustrating each in color, a stunning guide to the staggering diversity of vertebrate animals. Organized by the taxonomic categories of order, family, genus, and species, the text gives an overview of the characteristics shared by animals within each family. When a family's members are similar, the most typical and most interesting are depicted, with more species included for every dramatic visual variation. Each illustrated animal is described in detail, and every entry includes information on size, breeding patterns, feeding habits, intriguing adaptations and behaviors, common and scientific names, conservation status, geographic range, and h