Book excerpt: A stunning visual collection of the banded metaphase chromosomekaryotypes from some 850 species of mammals, the Atlas of MammalianChromosomes represents an unabridged compendium of the state ofthis genomic art form. Bringing together information currentlyscattered throughout the cytogenetics literature for scores ofpublished and unpublished species, this atlas features high-qualitykaryotype images for nearly every mammal studied to date, making itthe most comprehensive assemblage of high-resolution chromosomephotographs available--a critically invaluable resource for today'scomparative genomics era. For every available species, the Atlas of Mammalian Chromosomespresents the best karyotype produced, the common and Latin name ofthe species, the published citation, and the contributing authors.Most karyotypes are G-banded, revealing the chromosomal bar codesof homologous segments among related species. Addressing the mandate of the Human Genome Project to annotate thegenomes of other organisms as well, the Atlas of MammalianChromosomes offers a step forward in our understanding of speciesformation, of genome organization, and of DNA script for naturalselection. It is an invaluable resource for geneticists,mammalogists, and biologists interested in comparative genomics,systematics, and chromosome structure.