Showing all 11 results
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Where Corals Lie: A Natural and Cultural History
Artist/Author: Schick, J. Malcolm$80.00 Add to cartComing June 2018For millennia corals were a marine enigma confounding classification and occupying a space between the animal and vegetable kingdoms. Ultimately their animal and symbiotic natures were recognized, and they remain the focus of intense fascination and research. The danger to seafarers posed by unseen underwater coral reefs led to their association with death and interment that has figured in literature, poetry, music and film. The bright redness of precious Mediterranean coral was associated with blood, including coral’s gory origin in European and Indian mythology, and its place in religion. Corals have long been prized as jewellery and ornament, and were a feature of many Kunstkammer collections during the Renaissance. Seen as ‘rainforests of the sea’, coral reefs have become greenly emblematic of fragile marine biodiversity, warning of human-driven global climate change.This book uniquely treats the many manifestations of corals in biology and geology; how diverse corals came to figure in art, expeditionary accounts, medicine, folklore, geopolitics, and international trade; and corals as builders of islands and protectors of coastlines, and as building materials themselves. Exceptionally illustrated with a wide range of natural history images, underwater photographs and fine art, this book provides a unique resource for all interested in ocean environments and the cultures that have flourished there. -
Spineless: Portraits of Marine Invertebrates The Backbone of Life
Artist/Author: Middleton, Susan.$60.00 Add to cartAcclaimed photographer Susan Middleton explores the mysterious and surprising world of marine invertebrates, creatures without backbones. Invertebrates represent more than 98 percent of the known animal species in the ocean and they are the foundation of all life on Earth. They are also astonishingly diverse in their shapes, patterns, textures and colours. Alternately colourful, quirky, spindly, spiky, sticky, stretchy, squishy, squirmy, prickly, bumpy, bubbly and fluttery, the invertebrates appear almost surreal in their abstract forms. Middleton’s book is the result of seven years of painstaking fieldwork across the Pacific Ocean, using photographic techniques that she developed to portray these often-fragile creatures. She also contributes short essays on the place of marine invertebrates in the tree of life; their many forms; and their lives in the ocean.
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Stung!: on Jellyfish Blooms and the Future of the Ocean.
Artist/Author: Gershwin, Lisa-Ann.$50.00 Add to cartGrowing toxicity and rising temperatures coupled with overfishing have led many marine species to the brink of collapse. And yet there is one creature that is thriving in this seasick environment: the beautiful, dangerous, and now incredibly numerous jellyfish. As foremost jellyfish expert Lisa-Ann Gershwin describes in this book, the jellyfish population bloom is highly indicative of the tragic state of the world’s ocean waters, while also revealing the incredible tenacity of these remarkable creatures. Recent documentaries about swarms of jellyfish invading Japanese fishing grounds and headlines about armadas of stinging jellyfish in the Chesapeake are only the beginning – jellyfish are truly taking over the oceans. In general, oceans that are less favourable to fish are more favourable to jellyfish, and these are the very conditions that we are creating worldwide. Despite their role as harbingers of marine destruction, jellyfish are enthralling creatures in their own right, and in this book, Gershwin tells stories of jellyfish while illuminating many facts about their behaviours and environmental adaptations. She takes readers back to the Proterozoic era, when jellyfish were the top predator in the marine ecosystem and she explores the role jellies have as middlemen of destruction, moving swiftly into vulnerable ecosystems. The story of the jellyfish, as Gershwin makes clear, is also the story of the world’s oceans, and this book provides a unique and urgent look at their inseparable histories and future. Also available in paperback [stock id 37098].
See http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/sep/26/jellyfish-theyre-taking-over
for review by Tim Flannery -
A field guide to the marine invertebrates of South Australia.
Artist/Author: Gowlett-Holmes, Karen.$70.00 Add to cartThis is the most comprehensive book for the identification of South Australian marine invertebrates (intertidal to 30m depth) ever published. Covers all groups of macro marine invertebrates, including sponges, sea anemones, corals, jellyfish, bryozoans, worms, molluscs (snails, nudibranchs, bivalves, cephalopods), crustaceans (barnacles, amphipods, isopods, shrimps, crabs), echinoderms (seastars, sea urchins, sea cucumbers), and ascidians (sea squirts). Over 870 species illustrated in full colour over 1,500 high quality in situ colour photographs. With distribution maps, habitat information, and brief descriptions for all species.
Written and illustrated by Karen Gowlett-Holmes, a leading Australian marine biologist and international award-winning underwater photographer.
Designed as a field guide – compact A5 size, high quality printing, strong durable binding, with coated pages to resist repeated use, even with wet fingers! Ideal for students, scientists, snorkellers, divers, underwater photographers, shore fossickers, in fact anyone with an interest in southern Australian marine life.
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Subtidal invertebrates of New Zealand: a diver’s guide.
Artist/Author: Wing, Stephen.$25.00 Add to cartThe 155 species are commonly found at easily accessible depths, and range widely around New Zealand. The text accompanying the photographs provides a succinct description of each animal to aid identification. A general introduction explains invertebrate diversity and ecology.
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Polychaetes: an interactive identification guide.
Artist/Author: Wilson, R.S., et al.$160.00 Add to cartThis title is not held in stock but we are happy to supply on special order. Please contact us. This electronic reference brings together new and existing information to make polychaete identification simpler and more accurate. Eighty-three families and about 1150 living genera of polychaetes are recognized worldwide and all can be identified using this CD-ROM., Polychaetes: An Interactive Identification Guide brings together new and existing information making polychaete identification simpler and more accurate. Eighty-three families and about 1150 living genera of polychaetes are recognised worldwide, and all can be identified using this practical, easy-to-use CD-ROM. In addition, most of the known Australian polychaete fauna – more than 1200 species – can also be identified. All interactive keys have been developed in DELTA software using the interactive identification program intkey. A browser interface provides quick access to this rich information package. A detailed Overview section includes general notes on polychaetes and study methods. Also provided for each family of polychaetes are diagnoses, diversity and natural history data, identification tips and principal references, making this a valuable resource on polychaete diversity anywhere in the world. In addition, checklists and interactive keys comprise the best available identification guide to all known Australian polychaete species.
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Sea stars: Echinoderms of the Asia/Indo-Pacific.
Artist/Author: Coleman, Neville.$30.00 Add to cartA comprehensive photoguide to the living Echinoderms of the Asia/Indo-Pacific Region. Includes over 1250 full colour images, family names, common names and scientific names, up-to-date taxonomic identifications by world authorities. Coverage includes examples of all Classes: Sea Stars, Brittle Stars, Feather Stars, Sea Urchins and Sea Cucumbers.
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Corals: Indo-Pacific field guide.
Artist/Author: Erhardt, H. and D. Knop.$100.00 Add to cartFeaturing more than 1,000 photographs and several captivating stories, this book provides a breathtaking panorama of the coral world and identifies gorgonians, soft corals, stony corals, sea anemones and more.
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Soft corals and sea fans: a comprehensive guide to the tropical shallow water genera of the central-west Pacific, the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea.
Artist/Author: Fabricius, Katharina and Phil Alderslade.$75.00 Add to cartThe book is a comprehensive guide to all presently known 90 tropical genera in 23 families of soft corals and sea fans from the central-west Pacific, the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. A total of over 700 colour photographs, 90 plates of sclerite-drawings, and text about characteristics, ecology and distribution introduce each of the genera found in the region. Additionally, about 50 pages of introduction cover the morphology, biology and ecology of the beasts with text and numerous photographs, explain the few technical terms used, techniques of how to go about identifying an octocoral, how to survey octocoral communities, and choice of octocorals for a coral reef aquarium.
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Guide to protozoa of marine aquaculture ponds.
Artist/Author: Patterson, D. J. and M. A. Burford.$30.00 Add to cartIdentifies the main group of protozoa through photographs and illustrations.
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Corals of Australia and the Indo-Pacific.
Artist/Author: Veron, J. E. N.$100.00 Add to cartThe first reference of its kind, this book represents good biology, well-founded systematics, accessible biogeography, geological history of corals that can be traced back over five hundred million years, and one of the finest collections of pictures of corals to be found anywhere. Hailed as the single most important reference on reef corals, Corals of Australia and the IndoPacific is useful in describing corals in all areas of Oceania and Southeast Asia. It provides a means of identifying almost 1,000 species of coral, a reliable nomenclature, up-to-date information on distribution and abundance, and authoritative notes on structure and biology.
With the help of Australia’s best underwater photographers the author reveals the fascination of the coral world, from the microscopic detail of individual coral polyps to the grandeur of vast reefs-the largest structures built by living creatures. Dr. Veron has effectively synthesized many years of his own taxonomic studies and those of several co-workers to produce a classic publication. His extensive experience with the reefs of many countries, his superb scholarship, and his emphasis on living corals make his authoritative work of value to scientists and conservationists and an indispensable reference for educators, students of marine biology, divers, and everyone with an interest in the coral communities that exist throughout the world like miniature forests beneath the water.
Corals of Australia and the Indo-Pacific received the Australian National Awards Whitley Medal for Best Natural History book of 1988.
