Product Description

This book identifies all the species one is likely to encounter, with extensive information on their structural features, distribution, and ecological associations. Superbly illustrated, including keys, it is an introduction to their biology as well as a field guide.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #430766 in Books
• Published on: 2000-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 200 pages

Customer Reviews

Excellent - with 3 caveats
Overall I cannot find enough praise for the book. Clearly written, lavishly illustrated with exquisite line-drawings, and even the luxury of coloured plates! My three criticisms below can only be seen in the context of lavish praise which this volume richly deserves.

However...........

1. Chaper 6. Classification. Pages 70-71.

The classification diagram is fine. But it would have been very helpful to mention the class, division and kingdom in which myxomcetes belong. Thus enabling the reader to appreciate the place of Myxomycetes in the tree of all earthly life.

2. Chapter 6. Identification. Pages 72ff.

The novice's efforts to itentify a slime mould would be greatly assisted by taking one step back, before presenting the excellent dichotomous trees. We need an acid test to decide whether what is before our eyes is indeed a slime mould, and not e.g. a lichen, fungus, moss..... It is pointless to apply the dichotomous (how I love that word!) tests to something which is not in fact a slime mould at all!

2. Chapter 6. Descriptions (names). Pages 87ff.

As a matter of passionately held principle I object to the odious practice of adding discoveres' names to the scientific names of species. As the authors will be aware, there are strongs movement to put an end to this appalling habit which -

a. Detracts from the scientific objectivity of the naming scheme, by obtrusive name-dropping. Imagine the ridicule resulting from the spread of this practice to other sciences, where we might well stumble upon the ...

electron (Thompson) Milligan, neutron Chadwick neutrino (Yukawa) Dirac

b. Leads to such ugly and unfelicitous expressions as....

Trichia varia (Persoon) Persoon

.....surely a case of the tail wagging the dog!

c. Adds nothing to the intrinsic nature of the species. Presumably Physarella oblongata would still have existed, exactly as it now is, even if it had never been identified by (Berkley & Curtis) Morgan! Or indeed before any human beings evolved!

To avoid continual irritation I have typ-exed out all mention of discoverers' names in my copy of this otherwise splendid book!

Why no colour photographs?
Suffers from the fact that all the pictorial representations of the slime moulds are drawings, and mostly in black and white. Makes it virtually impossible for the amateur to make positive identifications. Surely it can't be beyond the wit of man to get colour photographs of each species at different stages of development?

Ing's "The Myxomycetes of Britain and Ireland: An Identification Handbook", ridiculously expensive and said to be the definitive work on the myxomycetes, apparently as far as I can tell also contains drawings rather than photographs. We need a work with photographs!