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Elizabeth Gosling

Bivalve Molluscs - Biology, Ecology and Culture


2003. 443 pp. ISBN 0852382340. Fishing News Books, a division of Blackwell Publishing UK. £75.

This book, which is set to become the standard work, offers a comprehensive coverage on this important class of molluscs. Bivalves are the basis of a multi-billion dollar industry worldwide, so this book is of relevance to biologists, ecologists, environmental and fisheries scientists, and people working in aquaculture. Chapters cover morphology, ecology, feeding, reproduction, settlement and recruitment, growth, physiology, fisheries, aquaculture, genetics, diseases and parasites, and public health issues. [From publisher’s details.]


Douglas Palmer

Fossil Revolution: The finds that changed our view of the past


2003. ISBN 0 00 7118287 144pp 150 illustr. Collins £16.99

This book, aimed at the general reader, is a very readable mix of science and the history of our scientific understanding of fossils, in a generous and rich sauce of anecdotes about the characters involved. The eccentric William Buckland is there, eating his way through the animal kingdom (or what was left in his menagerie after a visitor heard the jackal crunching one of the guinea pigs under the sofa). So, too, are the brilliant but ruthlessly ambitious Richard Owen, the industrious but belatedly acknowledged William ‘Strata’ Smith, Gideon Mantell, obsessed with his fossils to the ruination of his professional and domestic life, and the younger Mary Anning, of ichthyosaur fame (and possibly remembered in the tongue-twister “She sells seashells on the seashore…”). Further accounts of these people can be found in Simon Winchester’s story of Smith “The map that changed the world” (Penguin Books, 2002) and Deborah Cadbury’s “The Dinosaur Hunters” (Fourth Estate, 2000).

But Palmer’s book is more about our changing view of the fossil world – from the classical interpretation as bones of mythological giants to the discovery of Neanderthal man - and how our view of ourselves has changed in consequence. The book also reviews up-to-date evidence from DNA, and has accounts of fossil plants that, although brief, are missing from most books. (Page 74 has a transcription error: Williamson’s college, which became the University of Manchester, was Owen’s College – not Queen’s College.) Bird evolution also receives a generous coverage, including recent Chinese discoveries. The final chapters deal with the science of putting a scale of years onto the strata, early Cambrian and pre-Cambrian fossils, and fossil DNA. A lot of information is contained in this beautifully illustrated book, but with sufficient detail to explain the significance of each topic.

Bill Bailey


Trevor Norton

Reflections on a Summer Sea


ISBN 0 09 941616 6. Arrow Books (2002) £6.99.

An affectionately nostalgic and humorous portrayal of the niches, interactions and behavioural adaptations of the ecologists who worked at Lough Ine in Western Ireland. It will be especially appreciated by all who enjoy field courses and field work.


Tentacle

All issues of the Newsletter of the Mollusc Specialist Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission, edited by Robert Cowie, University of Hawaii, are now available on the web at: http://www.hawaii.edu/ccrt/tentacle.html


P Morgan , F Naggs, K Ranawana, K Kumburegama & B Grimm

A guide to the pest and exotic gastropods of Sri Lanka


2003, Zoology Department, Natural History Museum, London. £3.50

Similar to its predecessor, ‘Sri Lankan Snails’, in format and price, this is a 10-page leaflet on plastic coated card.
Available from the Museum’s bookshop.


Slugs and Snails:

Agricultural, Veterinary and Environmental Perspectives


The Proceedings of the 2003 BCPC Symposium, Canterbury, will be available to non-participants at £35
(incl. UK postage) from:

BCPC Publications Sales,
Bear Farm, Binfield, Bracknell,
Bucks RG42 5QE
Tel: 0118 934 2727 or Email: publ...@bcpc.org
Or on line from www.bcpc.org/bookshop


D W Taylor

Physidae


A 600 page illustrated monograph published by the Journal of Tropical Biology (Revista de Biologia Tropical) and INBio. US$30.

Order through: http://www.inbio.ac.cr/editorial/pages/ediprinen.html
Please contact Zaidett Barrientos (zba...@inbio.ac.cr) for further information


Barry Roth & Patricia S Sadeghian

Checklist of Land Snails and Slugs of California


Inventory and classification and distribution. 192 colour photographs.

From Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History www.sbnature.org/estore


Gustav Pauley

Marine Biodiversity of Guam


A double volume (682 pp.) issue of Micronesica, including chapters on bivalves, prosobranchs, opisthobranchs and cephalopods (84 pp.). US$ 50.

Email:
pau...@flmnh.ufl.edu or Fax: 1-352-846-0287


 

 

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