Fishes: A Field and Laboratory Manual on Their Structure, Identification and Natural History

Book Description

Now available from Waveland Press, this comprehensive, geographically balanced manual offers readers complete hands-on coverage of morphology, identification, and classification, physiological adaptations, and natural history. The book's taxonomic and geographic coverage is impressively broad as well, applying to a variety of fishes and areas: jawless, cartilaginous, and bony, fresh- and saltwater, temperate and tropical, and inshore and offshore. Helpful discussions and explanations introduce the guidebook's collection of well-designed exercises, making the connections between principles and specific inquiries easier to formulate. This approach works to help readers transform memorized facts into concepts that stimulate further explorations.

Sensuous Seas: Tales of a Marine Biologist

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Not sure who this book is meant for
Is there a marine biologist in the house?
Sex facts for 'sea' students except one bad chapter
Sensuous Seas: Prawnography at its best?
It's a strange world under the surface

Sensuous Seas: Tales of a Marine Biologist
Eugene H. Kaplan
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Underwater to Get Out of the Rain: A Love Affair With the Sea
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ASIN: 0691125600

Book Description

Learning marine biology from a textbook is one thing. But take readers to the bottom of the sea in a submarine to discover living fossils or to coral reefs to observe a day in the life of an octopus, and the sea and its splendors come into focus, in brilliant colors and with immediacy.

In Sensuous Seas, Eugene Kaplan offers readers an irresistibly irreverent voyage to the world of sea creatures, with a look at their habitats, their beauty and, yes, even their sex lives. A marine biologist who has built fish farms in Africa and established a marine laboratory in Jamaica, Kaplan takes us to oceans across the world to experience the lives of their inhabitants, from the horribly grotesque to the exquisitely beautiful. In chapters with titles such as "Fiddler on the Root" (reproductive rituals of fiddler crabs) and "Size Does Count" (why barnacles have the largest penis, comparatively, in the animal kingdom), Kaplan ventures inside coral reefs to study mating parrotfish; dives 740 feet in a submarine to find living fossils; explains what results from swallowing a piece of living octopus tentacle; and describes a shark attack on a friend.

The book is a sensuous blend of sparkling prose and 150 beautiful illustrations that clarify the science. Each chapter opens with an exciting personal anecdote that leads into the scientific exploration of a distinct inhabitant of the sea world--allowing the reader to experience firsthand the incredible complexity of sea life.

A one-of-a-kind memoir that unfolds in remarkable reaches of ocean few of us can ever visit for ourselves, Sensuous Seas brings the underwater world back to living room and classroom alike. Readers will be surprised at how much marine biology they have learned while being amused.

Customer Reviews:

Not sure who this book is meant for.......2007-06-12

This book is a neat attempt at capturing some of the urban legends of marine biology as well as some of the other interesting marine minutae, spiced up with a tone of irreverence. While this is a noble goal, I would be very wary of giving this book to anyone untrained in marine biology who is beginning to become interested in the topic. For starters it is often factually inaccurate. Granted, Kaplan may be unaware of some of the advances in knowledge in the last decade, but some of the anecdotes and stories presented as truth are more urban legend than fact. In addition to needing a good editor (some of the chapters are nearly incoherent) it also needs a good fact checker.

Moreover, the general tone taken towards nature and science is one of freewheeling fun rather than a desire for respect or understanding. While the author may feel that attempts to understand the elegant and wonderful mechanisms underlying the sea are stuffy and boring, there is something to be said for having students go out into the field and make observations, design experiments, and really LOOK at nature, rather than have them attempt to grab fish, gobble down octopus tentacles, and generally tromp around merely creating lists of species.

Further, while Kaplan may have been trying to come across and amusing by sexing things up a bit (there is some truth in that this approach can grab students), it often quickly descends into the kind of almost unconscious sexism that is so often criticized in the sciences. I would NOT give this book to a young girl or woman aspiring to be a marine biologist, as it is certain to give her the wrong kind of message about the kinds of people in the field and the treatment she is to expect.

There are a variety of excellent popular books out there about the ocean, marine biologists (Log of the Sea of Cortez, Nature's Machines, etc.), and the crazy sex lives of animals (Dr. Tatiana's Sex Guide to All Creation). This is not one of them. I would recommend the aforementioned books, or any of the other excellent books or DVDs (The Blue Planet) about the underwater world and science and give this a pass.

Is there a marine biologist in the house?.......2006-11-11

When I heard that Kaplan had written a book, I wondered if the man could be captured by the printed page. No problem. His book immediately took me back to his wonderful marine biology class in Jamaica. His stories were always fascinating, and I am happy to see them recorded here. The reader can appreciate that he is a character and a wonderful educator. His knowledge has also inspired many to continue their studies of the conplexities found in the sea. Everyone interested in marine biology should read this book. There are so many surprises. Beautiful drawings.

Sex facts for 'sea' students except one bad chapter.......2006-11-03

Even if you already spend some time in the water and know something about the life there, Eugene Kaplan's essays about being a teacher will likely tell you something you didn't know -- or something you knew that isn't so.
For example, in "Debunking the Big Lie," Kaplan explains that the starfish does not "win" his battle with the oyster by tiring it out, so that the protective shells gape.
"All of this is a misrepresentation perpetrated on generations of students," writes Kaplan, who teaches at Hofstra University and at its marine laboratory in Jamaica.
It turns out, "it is unnecessary to pull the shells apart. <\q>. <\q>. <\q.> Invariably there is a fissure," through which the sea star squeezes its stomach, digesting the oyster within.
However, most of the lore in "Sensuous Seas" is about sex, rather like an underwater version of Olivia Judson's best-seller on evolution, "Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation."
Kaplan says he was driven to sex up his lectures in order to keep the attention of students. He was able to get away with this because most of them were invertebrates -- the sea creatures, not the students.
He is also big on field experience, and being one of his students must have been lots of fun and a little scary.
The late Sen. William Proxmire would have scorned the research into the mating behavior of the Malaysian prawn, but you never can tell. Hawaii aquaculturalists would have saved a lot of money had they known earlier why Malaysian prawns are impossible to raise to market size in captivity -- the dominant male in a tank exudes pheromones that keep all the others small. The fact that shoyu is an aphrodisiac for these prawns, once thought to be a breakthrough piece of aquacultural expertise, is now just a curiosity.
Wrapping up a half century of teaching and 31 fascinating chapters on the ocean's inhabitants (including the timely topic of stingray deaths), Kaplan reflects on the pedagogy of introducing complex subjects to naive students. "There is a conflict in the mind of every teacher as to how much 'knowledge' must be sacrificed in order to make a course interesting," he writes.
Unfortunately, Kaplan lets his alarmism get the better of him in this conflict in his chapter on corals. Corals are the "canaries in the coal mine," he assures us, warning that "global warming does exist" and that "present-day oceans average 2 degrees C. above past normal temperatures."
In a book aimed at naive readers, this comes close to professional malpractice.
First, there is no such thing as "past normal temperatures." Second, corals have hung around for hundreds of millions of years, most of them warmer than now.
Third, there is no scientific agreed measurement for coral bleaching, the signal "of the impending doom of many of the earth's less flexible organisms."
"Be forewarned," warns Kaplan. Yeah. That's still globaloney, no matter how you slice it.

Sensuous Seas: Prawnography at its best?.......2006-08-16

If Miss Jean Brodie was a marine biologist she would, after reading the first page, dismiss this book with its discussion of the attributes of 'Miss Nubile' and hormone laden young men as soft porn. In doing so she would miss out on a distillation of over 30 years experience from a committed, slightly eccentric educationalist and respected academic with a passion for tropical marine ecology. For anyone teaching biology or marine science this engagingly written book is a marvellous toolbox of anecdotes and examples that will stimulate even the most cynical of students.

Each chapter follows a roughly similar pattern with a lyrical initial paragraph and an anecdotal introduction to set the scene followed by a series of easily digestible sections on the same theme. The subject matter for each section, drawn from his years of experience on the field, ranges from the dangers of eating fugu (puffer fish) through to the disproportionate size of the humble barnacles penis. Through a colourful and often humorous approach to each topic, the reader is given a toe-hold grasp of some fairly chewy areas of biology (e.g. honest signalling, evolution, symbiosis, behaviour).

I showed this book to my mother-in-law (not a biologist) who was impressed by the ease with which she could understand the subjects and concepts explored. Having had her interest stimulated by the book she proceeded to bombard me with more questions - how I wish my own students would react similarly to my delivery! I will be using much of the material presented in Sensuous Seas to spice up my own lectures to marine biology undergraduates but this book will also be of interest to armchair and amateur field naturalists.

It's a strange world under the surface.......2006-08-13

From the bizarre to the macabre, nature's ingenuity knows only the bounds of evolutionary advantage.

A small, appetizing, cleaner fish waves to big, passing predators "advertising its services." The savage behemoth approaches, assumes an unthreatening stance and is cleaned of parasites by the smaller creature.

The Portuguese man `o war fish lives safe from its enemies among the poisonous tentacles of its namesake gasbag jellyfish ("no brain, no blood, no heart, no anus"). But the fish, which must dart out to feed, has never evolved an immunity to the man `o war's paralyzing venom other than its own agility.

Clownfish (remember Nemo?) mate for life and live among the poisonous tentacles of the sea anemone, paying for their safe refuge by feeding the anemone. "If the female dies, the male becomes a female and a new male joins her."

Sex change is pretty common in this eat and be eaten world. Even more efficient are the hermaphrodites, like the sea hares, who have both male and female equipment and mate in group circles.

A biologist with a half-century's experience, a professor and the author of nine books, Kaplan introduces each animal in this collection of essays on the mating and feeding habits of sea creatures with an anecdotal encounter. Many involve personal experience, often with his students, who quickly learn that the most flamboyantly colorful are often the most dangerous, like the red and white fringed fireworm which has hundreds of pretty poison barbs.

But few of these, not even the blue-ringed octopus whose bite kills in minutes, compare in horror with a small Amazonian catfish who swims up a human's urinary tract, extends its spines for secure placement and begins rapidly tearing at and consuming its victim's innards.

However, for pure unadulterated cruelty as a way of life nothing (at least in this book) matches a tiny, free-swimming barnacle larvae that takes up residence in a crab, turns it into a female if it happens to be male, consumes all flesh and organs not required to keep the crab alive, and then fills in the newly vacated space with its own tissue. The barnacle then extrudes sexual organs, which attract a couple of males who also take up residence in the crab. Thereafter, "endless hordes of larvae are released periodically" from the hapless host.

Kaplan aims - successfully - to entertain, amuse, shock and amaze readers while teaching. Describing the perilous lives of shrimp, fish, snails, worms and more, he shows how evolution provides the most efficient means for surviving long enough to reproduce. These involve some pretty ingenious designs.

Like the lettuce sea slug that basks in the sun on its blade of turtle grass. It consumes algae and conveys the green chloroplasts to the lacy frills on its back, then gathers energy from the sun through photosynthesis like a plant! But, to take advantage of this free energy it must expose itself to the sun and any passing predator. It survives by tasting so bad that predators spit it out unharmed.

Kaplan does not mention what does eat it though something must since the world is not overrun with lettuce sea slugs. He also doesn't say how many offspring the hermaphrodite sea slugs produce, but most of the sea creatures discussed here produce thousands upon thousands of progeny and many are barely holding their own even though it takes only two to replace the parents.

Some creatures - seahorses and shrimp to name only two - are endangered by human predation, but even without humans the sea is a tough environment with numerous hungry predators on the prowl at every stage of life.

With vivid writing, a sense of humor and truly fascinating creatures to work with, Kaplan creates a feel for the teeming sea and rouses a sense of wonder in his readers. Line drawings in each chapter illustrate the creatures and their life cycles. This is a book for anyone with even a small bit of curiosity about the hidden world around them.

-- Portsmouth Herald

Atlantic Shorelines: Natural History and Ecology

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Atlantic Shorelines: Natural History and Ecology
Mark D. Bertness
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Life Between the Tides: Marine Plants and Animals of the Northeast
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Sensuous Seas: Tales of a Marine Biologist

ASIN: 0691125546

Book Description

Atlantic Shorelines is an introduction to the natural history and ecology of shoreline communities on the East Coast of North America. Writing for a broad audience, Mark Bertness examines how distinctive communities of plants and animals are generated on rocky shores and in salt marshes, mangroves, and soft sediment beaches on Atlantic shorelines.

The book provides a comprehensive background for understanding the basic principles of intertidal ecology and the unique conditions faced by intertidal organisms. It describes the history of the Atlantic Coast, tides, and near-shore oceanographic processes that influence shoreline organisms; explains primary production in shoreline systems, intertidal food webs, and the way intertidal organisms survive; sets out the unusual reproductive challenges of living in an intertidal habitat, and the role of recruitment in shaping intertidal communities; and outlines how biological processes like competition, predation, facilitation, and ecosystem engineering generate the spatial structure of intertidal communities.

The last part of the book focuses on the ecology of the three main shoreline habitats--rocky shores, soft sediment beaches, and shorelines vegetated with salt marsh plants and mangroves--and discusses in detail conservation issues associated with each of them.

Biology of Marine Birds (Marine Biology)

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Biology of Marine Birds (Marine Biology)

Manufacturer: CRC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Biology of Sea Turtles, Volume II

ASIN: 0849398827

Book Description

Biology of Marine Birds provides the only complete summary of information about marine birds ever published. It both summarizes and analyzes their breeding biology, ecology, taxonomy, evolution, fossil history, physiology, energetics, and conservation. The book covers four orders of marine birds: penguins (Sphenisciformes); albatross, shearwaters, petrels (Procellariiformes); pelicans, boobies, frigatebirds, tropicbirds, cormorants (Pelecaniformes); and gulls, terns, guillemots, auks (Charadriiformes - Families Laridae and Alcidae). Two summary chapters address the biology of shorebirds and wading birds and their lives in the marine environment. This comprehensive book contains numerous summary tables that give you exhaustive information on various aspects of their life histories, breeding biology, physiology and energetics, and demography. It also discusses research techniques and future research needed, providing a guide to ornithologists and students for research projects. Written by acknowledged experts in this field, Biology of Marine Birds is the ideal resource. The authors not only present known information, but provide new analyses and insights into marine bird biology. You will find no other book that covers all the major seabird groups and all the major topics with this depth of detail. Whether you are studying, researching, or managing marine environments, you will find yourself reaching for this resource repeatedly.

Sealife: A Complete Guide to the Marine Environment

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A Remarkable Introduction to Sea Life
Wonderful!
Good Introductory Text
Best guide for the marine environment!
Excellent guide to the marine world

Sealife: A Complete Guide to the Marine Environment
Geoffrey Waller , Marc Dando , and Michael Burchett
Manufacturer: Smithsonian
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1560986336

Customer Reviews:

A Remarkable Introduction to Sea Life.......2004-07-29

I first ran into this book in the bookstore of the Institute of Oceanography at La Jolla, California. I was tempted to buy it, but put it off for a while because I live very far inland and could not justify the purchase. I later bought it elsewhere, but passed it on to my daughter who lives much closer to a sea coast and gets out there occasionally. I was glad to give it to her because after going over this volume for a few months I can say that this is probably the best first book for anyone interested in marine biology. It is certainly very beautifully designed and well written.

The color plates and great black and white drawings really illustrate this book in a way that is seldom seen in such works. Numerous details are covered in the text that are backed up by the superb illustrations. The plates of marine habitats and their inhabitants were especially effective in this regard.

If you can get just one book on marine biology, this would be it!

Wonderful!.......2000-11-29

This is an absolute must have if you are looking for a quick explanation of all aspects of ocean life. The authors have done a thorough job of making short, detailed explanations to almost anything you might be looking for. This book is basically a fun to read encyclopedia of marine life.

Good Introductory Text.......2000-06-29

While not intended primarily as a textbook, I have used SeaLife as the text in my introductory oceanography class for the past two years. The authors present their ideas clearly and the illustrations are well done. An adequate index is furnished.

Best guide for the marine environment!.......1999-09-25

although not a "complete" guide, a wonderful book for every sea-loving creature! wonderful pictures and informative text for every amateure or pregraduate student

Excellent guide to the marine world.......1999-03-07

A "must have" for both armchair and amateur naturalists with a keen interest in the marine world. I'm a scuba diver who lives in the Pacific Northwest but takes vacations around the world. The joy of this book is that it begins with the beginning--the origination of the oceans, including a bit of tectonic theory--and progresses to a detailed description of many of the genera in the oceanic realm. It's not a detailed guide to my particular corner of the world, but as a general guide to the world's oceans it can't be beat for both it's breadth and depth. This is a beginner's book with some real 'meat' to it! I highly recommend it.

The Life Cycle of an Emperor Penguin (The Life Cycle)

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The Life Cycle of an Emperor Penguin (The Life Cycle)
Bobbie Kalman , and Robin Johnson
Manufacturer: Crabtree Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Biology | Science, Nature & How It Works | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0778707040

Marine Birds and Mammals of Puget Sound (Puget Sound Book)

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Marine Birds and Mammals of Puget Sound (Puget Sound Book)
Tony Angell , and Kenneth C. Balcomb
Manufacturer: Univ of Washington Pr
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Binding: Hardcover

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El Ciclo De Vida Del Pinguino Emperador (Ciclos De Vida Del)

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El Ciclo De Vida Del Pinguino Emperador (Ciclos De Vida Del)
Bobbie Kalman , and Robin Johnson
Manufacturer: Crabtree Children's Books
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0778787184

Atlantic Alcidae: The Evolution, Distribution and Biology of the Auks Inhabiting the Atlantic Ocean and Adjacent Water Areas

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Atlantic Alcidae: The Evolution, Distribution and Biology of the Auks Inhabiting the Atlantic Ocean and Adjacent Water Areas
David N. Nettleship
Manufacturer: Academic Pr
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Binding: Hardcover

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Gorgious Photography, Interesting Text, & Weak Indexing

Beneath the North Atlantic
Jonathan Bird
Manufacturer: Tide-Mark Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1559493143

Customer Reviews:

Gorgious Photography, Interesting Text, & Weak Indexing.......2002-11-18

This coffee table book has stunning photography and descriptions of the creatures you might find while diving in the Gulf of Maine. I use it to show non-divers what I see when I go diving in Massachusetts, but I rarely come across specimens as beautiful as the pictures in the book. The descriptions often have both a lot of detail, such as typical measurements of the creatures, where they are found, coloration, etc., and anecdotal information, such as how the author's dive buddy was chased by a 20 lb. lobster with claws as big as his head.

The chapters are sequenced in a taxonomic order, starting with the Plankton and going "up" through the phyla of sponges, jellyfish, mollusks, etc., with fish and marine mammals at the "top". This structure, while common in underwater creature ID books, is not particularly obvious to the casual reader (i.e., someone who is not a marine biology geek). The chapter names, which are sometimes the Latin phylum name (e.g., Echinoderms) and sometimes the common name (e.g., Sponges) won't help Aunt Martha find "that round green thing with the pointy spikes", and even if she remembered that it was called a "sea urchin" she couldn't find it in the index. That is the glaring weakness of this book: it is hard to look up something in particular unless you already know where to look, and even then the sub-headings aren't in the table of contents and aren't always indexed (Sea Urchins are described under the section sub-heading Echinoids, which are a type of Echinoderm).

So, Aunt Martha will just have to flip through the book to find the sea urchins, and that reveals the glaring strength of the book: excellent photography that makes searching through the pages enjoyable.

Don't get this book as a reference book of North Atlantic marine life; do get it as coffee table book to browse through and to show others what is "down there".

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