Invertebrates Books

One of the best, most thorough short books out there on the subject -- easy to tote around, concise, yet readable and even enjoyable. As the previous reviewer mentioned, the stinging arthros are skipped out on, but if that's important to you, your best bet might be downloading the notes pages from the University of California's course pages website (I'd recommend, honestly, snagging all of their pages from their micro and parasitology departments -- these are GOOD notes and videos, priceless and yet price-less), and/or snagging a copy of the appropriate (and it will be longer) chapter on subject same from "Medical and Veterinary Entomology" (which is probably my 5-star GET THIS IF YOU CAN AFFORD IT text/reference and all-around reader on the subject. It's thorough, it's got good pictorial coverage, and it's incredibly readable -- but expensive (worth it, but what good is that if you can't afford it -- and you'll RARELY (read: probably NEVER) find a cheap used copy on here or anywhere).

As for this particular (short, handy, soft-cover and light) book: Note well that if you're taking an undergrad course in med (and maybe also vet) parasitology with entomology, this book is the most often used book in my experience. It can be well-supplemented (especially in the graphics section, which is admittedly poor, save for the very helpful line drawings and graphs) by John T. Sullivan's "Electronic Atlas of Parasitology" CD (currently in Version 2.02 (as far as I know), available from the author who is a professor at UC-San Francisco, via ebay, and possibly also via Amazon, for somewhere around $12-15).

All in all, I thoroughly recommend this book, ESPECIALLY for anybody reviewing for exams or finals, where it truly shines for its concision and well-thought-out format. If you've got labs (and especially if you have a lot of lab quizzes), this book will only get you so far in preparation for that portion of your education (for eg, while you might find descriptions of differentiating culex from aedes, the pictures themselves are pretty much necessary, take my word) -- do do the extra work and obtain something with good pictorial (color is preferable but not necessary) views... even if it is a book specifically on field entomology & identification, or in combination with that CD (more helpful with the parasitology portion, to be honest).

This paperback volume is a bit pricey but worth it for the information contained. Line drawings accompany and compliment the text. This book is very much up-to-date. Two shortcomings kept it from a 5 star rating: the bees & wasps are not included, and the addition of some color plates would have been most helpful.

I found this book useful. It contains a lot of information on arthropods of medical importance and is detailed on each aspect. It is divided into sizeable sections relating to e.g. specific diseases and I found it a bit wordy and took a little time to negotiate to the information I required. It contains some good diagrams and references to other sources.

One of the better text books I have seen- it does not put me to sleep, and is informative.
The book is organized by arbopathogen rather than vector. It does focus on the vectorial aspects of disease transmission and pathogen life cycle. The writing is not so clinical that non-physicians can't understand what is being discussed. All in all, this is a good book to add to a personal research library.

If you really like to go to reptile shows to get your pets, this book is really great to carry with you. It consists of numerous one page entries on individual species. It includes nearly all of the reptiles (including snakes) and amphibians that you would encounter in the pet trade. Although I wish it had more information on whether or not a certain animal was easy to handle or good for beginners/experts, etc, it's a good "shotgun" herp book to have since it details lots of different species not just a select few. So if you ever have wondered how long a long-tailed lizard gets when you are at your local herp show, you can easily look it up in this book.

I liked nearly everything about this book. The format of one species per page with a high quality color photo made it wonderful to use. This info is for all the popular animals kept in captivity. The content of information was great, with one exception. I wish the temperature ranges for species were given, but the author directs the reader to other book titles with this and more detailed information.

Very easy to understand and very informative book. Good for research or just for the ammonite enthusiast.

I have mixed emotions about this book, it is very informative on many levels but falls short on many more. I was thinking that it would be about things frequently seen from the beach but it includes a lot of info the layman will probably never need. This includes info (I personally appreciated) about planktonic animals, mieofauna and epifauna, in general a bunch of small animals most people will never notice. Not to say that they shouldn't have been included! They are very important to understanding the ecology of the areas discussed. See what I mean about mixed emotions? I like the way that the book grouped things by community; oyster reef, seagrass bed, mud bottom, etc. A hearty appendix that linked things by taxonomic group would have been nice though. Illustrations where copious but a tad bit simple. In the price range the line drawings could have been better, or supplemented by black and white illustrations. Also curious was the listing of only invertebrates until the end, then the authors jumped over everything and threw in a chapter on sea turtles??? What about the rest of the marine vertebrates? Why include the turtles without the fish and marine mammals? Kind of lopsided.

If you see this book lying around it is certainly worth having. I'm still using it to flip back and explore certain areas. I wouldn't get to hung up on finding a copy, unless you're really trying to own everything on gulf coast marine life.

This is a brilliant book, it has clear description and very good pictures in it! Highly recommand!

This is a very good introductory text on how streams and rivers function. It covers the habitat, organisms that live in them, and factors that affect them. The book has numerous references of source material and additional reading. I recommend this as great background material for this subject area.

This book gives technical descriptions of collected (and pickled) specimens, and location information. Drawings of scale patterns and gill arches helped me understand how the work of species identification is done, when done by specialists in ichthyology. Not a book for aquarium hobbyists until they have had their curiosity roused by the debates over which name applies to which fish.

I read it cover to cover, however.

Very technical, entirely comprehensive, and is still found in the bibliography of just about any serious scientific book on aquaculture. This is an excellent reference on filtration techniques, toxicity of common medications, calculating carrying capacity, and is just full of useful ideas and references. If you approach the hobby with a bit of scientist in you, this is a book you should have. When he wrote the book, no one in the hobby was doing protein skimmers, but he discussed them in detail here. Whatever the next big concept is, I wouldn't be surprised if he discussed it. This is a rare gem of a book.

the book describes biological details of both scyphomedusa and stauromedusae, and has a large bibliography. i found it useful in my study on the scyphomedusae as the other book I had been using was published in 1970. Distribution details are not given, however. Good sourcebook for Scyphozoan reserach.