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Acknowledgements
This book is the result of the collaboration of 100 authors from
25 countries covering five continents. We are deeply grateful to
all them for their expertise, effort and patience in writing their
chapters; without their contribution, this work would not have
seen the light.
We are also in debt to our artists Francesco Rinaldi and
Luciano Toma, who have illustrated this book with their beauti-
ful drawings.
A special thanks goes to Daniele Baisero for his patience in
making the 20 distribution maps of each pig and peccary species.
We are grateful to Dr Craig Hilton-Taylor, Head of the Red
List Unit of IUCN, for the permission to use the IUCN data for
the distribution maps.
The editors thank Dr Don E. Wilson of the Smithsonian
Institution (Washington, DC) for his time dedicated in writing
the Foreword.
A special thanks to Vincenzo Penteriani, Maria Del Mar
Delgado and to my partner for their useful advice.
We would like to thank the support of all Cambridge staff;
Dominic Lewis (Commissioning Editor) for his advice dur-
ing the different stages of the book; Ilaria Tassistro (Assistant
Editor) for her help in the first stage of the volume; Lindsey
Tate (Content Manager) for overseeing the production of our
book; Tim Hyland (Editorial Assistant) for the arrangement
of the contracts; Katrina Halliday (Commissioning Editor) for
her support; and finally the Press Syndicate at the Cambridge
University Press for the formal approval of our title.
We would also like to thank three anonymous reviewers for
their helpful advice during the reviewing process.
Last, but not least, Mario is in debt to to his mother Carla
Romanelli who continues to encourage and guide him through
his life and his work! We are also grateful to our families for their
support and patience during the years of this book project.13:07: