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: #28763 in Books
• Published on: 2001-06-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 456 pages

Synopsis
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.

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

Basic but well written and Illustrated
A beautifully illustrated book with many of the common intertidal and sublittoral species represented. This book gives a little information about the biology and distributions of covered organisms. However identification mainly relies on photographs, without the use of keys. A good book for anyone interested in the organisms of the seashore, but for detailed and certain identification the keen biologist may require a more in depth approach.

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.

The book is generally very useful. Images are excellent.
In general I find the book sufficiently useful to carry it on the seashore to remind me of the names that I have forgotten over the course of my career in marine science. I can see some problems with the occasional identification but there are considerably more that are right than those that are wrong. For the non-professional its an excellent guide. For the marine biologist who needs to identify everything accurately there are professional taxonomic works: Let's not confuse the two... We need public enthisiasm to conserve UK marine life. The illustrations and layout of this book will generate that enthusiasm.