Product Description

This photographic guide to sea shore animals and plants represents a completely new approach to field guides. It is aimed at those who wish to find and identify organisms encountered on the sea shore or immediately offshore quickly and easily while promoting their conservation. Uniquely, each species is illustrated by a photograph and, in most cases, accompanied by a line drawing that emphasises the critical features for identification and a map to show the distribution of the species in North-West Europe. The text itself deliberately focuses on features that complement the photographs and facilitate identification non-destructively - where, for example, burrowing worms can only be identified by digging them up and therefore killing them, only the cast, the part usually seen, is shown. Stress is laid on the importance of exploiting all available information for locating and identifying each species - if two species have identical appearance they are described separately and behavioural, geographical, or seasonal features that distinguish them are described in the text. There is no other guide to sea shore organisms like this one; those available are either less comprehensive or less well illustrated. It will appeal to beachcombers of all levels, from families to students and professionals, as well to divers and those visiting the proliferating numbers of commercially run marine aquaria that are open to the public.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #253663 in Books
• Published on: 2001-06-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 456 pages

About the Author
Ray Gibson has spent his career as Professor of Marine Biology at the John Moores University, Liverpool, teaching marine biology in the field and the classroom. Alex Rogers is a marine biologist at Southampton University Ben Hextall is a freelance marine photographer and web designer for marine activities

Customer Reviews

A surprising number of errors and misleading information
Its pretty cover will undoubtedly sell it to the unsuspecting public, and at first sight it appears to be just what divers need - a photographic identification guide, with an easy to follow layout, species photos, notes, key identification features and distribution maps. Unfortunately, this book doesn't live up to its promise, and the more you examine it the less trustworthy it proves.

After only a quick flick through the pictures we found at least a dozen glaring errors where the photos used to illustrate easily recognised species were of a completely different species (examples: the football seasquirt Diazona violacea, sponge Raspailia hispida, sea gooseberry Pleurobrachia pileus, sea cucumber Neopentadactyla mixta and seaweed Scytosiphon lomentaria) and there was even one image used more than once to illustrate different species! A more detailed look at the guide, including testing it during a marine taxanomic workshop involving experts from all over the UK and Ireland, revealed many more errors. Many of the distribution maps are inaccurate, and for a book that claims to cover the area from the Bay of Biscay to Norway, it has a distinctly southern bias. Many common and easily identified northern British species are missing, even the lumpsucker. Yet they include the southern seaslug Hypselodoris messinensis, which doesn't occur in Britain as far as we know. And have the authors got something against Wales - what about the seafans and many other southern and western species which occur in Pembrokeshire?

The authors have used a mixture of new and out-of-date scientific names, and many common names have been omitted - why they didnt stick to 'industry standards' set in the Marine Conservation Society's Species Directory? While many of the photos are good, others are too poor for identification purposes (notably many of the seaweeds), and many (dead?) specimens are photographed against a sandy background, giving the wrong impression of their natural habitat.

Amateur naturalists and students studying marine biology cannot put their trust in this guide as it is. Will Oxford University Press withdraw this edition from the shelves until a second and substantially more trustworthy edition is produced? - I doubt it.

Great for scuba divers in the UK
Whilst I may not be able to substantiate the biological accuracy of this book I found it hugely enjoyable to use.
I dive frequently in the waters around the UK, this book has shown me much of the wealth and diversity of our local sealife. Many people imagine that our compared to the great barrier reef there is relativly nothing to see.

The format was clear and easy to use. Photatgraphs were wonderful, too many times have I had identification books with little line drawing that were just dull to look at.

In my opinion this book may be lacking in some areas but for a non biologist it provides a great entry into the underwater world of life.

Nice layout, but poor identification accuracy
I have identified and recorded marine molluscs for 20+ years, mainly as an amateur, so I was pleased to see a new photo marine ID book. The layout is good; but that is the only positive aspect of the book. I list points concerning the mollusc section.

1. The book says species are mostly illustrated in their natural habitat - at least 15 species are in the wrong habitat eg p. 279 Lasaea 'rubra', and others are misleading.

2. The nomenclature is out of date - the Species Directory (published 1997 by Ulster Museum/Marine Conservation Society) is the accepted version by most professionals.

3. Some of the distribution maps are wrong eg p.237 Osilinus lineatus (which is a widely known species).

4.The drawings are cursory and add little eg p. 237 Gibbula umbilicalis.

5. The text is inaccurate in places eg under Barleeia unifasciata - Assiminea grayana occurs in Ireland; under Hydrobia ulvae - ventrosa and neglecta CANNOT be separated by shell characters

6. The quality of the photos is very poor in places eg p. 243 Rissoa parva

7. The worst aspect of the book is the high level of inaccuracy in the identifications. 18 of the mollusc photos are incorrectly identified (nearly 15%) eg. all photos on pages 249 and 267 are wrong! Experts in other groups have also found inaccuracies of identification.

This book is supposed be a identification guide. It is therefore unacceptable, and a considerable disappointment, to have such a high level of inaccuracy.