A Practical Guide to the Marine Animals of Northeastern North America
Ranging from the Canadian maritime provinces to Cape Hatteras, this comprehensive field guide covers macrofauna, i.e., both vertebrates and invertebrates visible to the unaided eye, that live from high-tidal-water levels to the margin of the offshore continental shelf. Reptiles, such as marine turtles, and mammals, such as whales and dolphins, are included, but insects, arachnids, and birds are excluded. Users can identify a totally unknown marine organism through a tabular key system and are then referred to more detailed descriptions in such sources as R.W. Miner's Field Book of Seashore Life (1950) and Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Seashore Creatures (1981). Practical advice on timing field trips to the tides, basic field techniques, and safety guidelines are all provided by Pollock (biology, Drew Univ.), who has taught field courses in marine science for many years and draws upon this experience. The text is profusely illustrated, with some illustrations taken from authoritative earlier sources that are fully acknowledged and others original to this volume. A six-page bibliography of sources and a bibliography of illustration credits are included for further study. A valuable addition to the reference collections of undergraduate academic libraries as well as specialized collections in biology.?Judith Barnett, Pell Marine Science, Lib., Univ. of Rhode Island, KingstonCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.