Marine Life Books

this book is great,because is the best and only one about sea urchins biology,i need this book to work with sea urchins of caribbean,mister lawrence is godfor me,tanks,amazon

This book was very good and helped me to keep my spanish intact. I sometimes had troubles trying to understand what happened but I caught on. Este libro es muy bueno y es excelente por los ninos! El libro es muy comico y los picturas es muy bien!

Has your child ever wondered about the monster fish that electrocutes its prey with 600 volts? This book will engage any child (and parent) who likes fish, who is curious about nature, or who is obsessed with charismatic electrogenic fauna of the Neotropics. The opening page ("fish have fins") irked my daughter, but the next page picked up the pace and the book held her interest to the end. The photos are superb, the text is clear and engaging, and the science is 100% accurate - the author consulted experts to get every detail just right.

This is an enticing little book about a glorious place. Elkhorn Slough is a seasonal brackish-water estuary which drains into Monterey Bay, about 100 miles south of the Golden Gate. It's a National Research Reserve, managed by Cal Fish & Game, not a pristine wilderness by any means, but a "rescued" and partly restored coastal wetlands. The initial efforts to rescue it came from The Nature Conservancy, an organization to which I contribute more willingly than to any political campaign. More than 75% of California's coastal wetlands have been ravaged by development, and the efforts to destroy the remainder for short-term profit have been assisted by the current Republican administrations in DC and in Sacramento.

The little book gives a history of the salvation of Elkhorn, and an eloquent description of the ecological value of sloughs and marshes. It also includes descriptions of the flora and fauna, including life habits and significance to the hills above and sea below the slough. There are wonderful pictures of the estuary and its fauna, particularly of the birds and marine mammals. One is certain to see large numbers of birds there, even in the months between migrations, as well as seals, sea lions, and sea otters. Elkhorn is probably the finest place to observe otters in all of California.

Bird-watchers, take note: on a single day, from my kayak, I've seen pelicans, two species of grebes, loons, four species of gulls, cormorants, mergansers, pintails, buffleheads, shovelers, ruddy ducks, all manner of common ducks, geese, dowitchers, stilts, avocets, willets, curlews, clapper rails, night herons, blue herons, two species of egrets, three species of hawks, and a rabble of songbirds.

The best way to visit Elkhorn Slough is by kayak or canoe, although there are a few walking paths also. Boat launches are maintained at the mouth and at two places toward the source, but most visitors rent a kayak at Moss Landing, a hamlet by the bridge of Highway 1 which crosses the mouth of the estuary. No freeway has been allowed to ruin the coast of the Bay Area from SF to Monterey, and I suspect that if bulldozers arrived to build one, I'd be among hundreds or thousands of protestors throwing our bodies in their path. There are glorious state park beaches north and south of Moss Landing. The rugged hills along this coast include huge tracts of park and nature preserve, with glorious hiking trails, and Monterey, with its research aquarium, is well worth a visit. The whole area is a year-round wonderland for outdoorsy tourists, and a vivid living sermon on the importance of conservation and preservation. Off-shore oil drilling would potentially doom this fragile national treasure; any politician who advocates it should hasten to kayak up Elkhorn Slough, to see first-hand what he/she risks destroying.

Later: as the comments that follow reveal, there are current and ongoing threats to the viable ecology of Elkhorn Slough. Agricultural run-off of pesticides and fertilizers, a nation-wide crisis. Biological hazards to the sea mammals, especially the otters, from rain drainage that carries feline disease organisms. A desalinization plant at Moss Landing. Etc. I focused above on the issue of oil drilling because that issue has become a political smokescreen, an attempt by Sen. McCain and his party to use the current high gasoline prices to scare their way into power again. The alignment of the bulk of Republicans with oil interests and against environmental protections and regulations, in my opinion, should be a central issue of the upcoming presidential election.

This book has some of the nicest pictures I've seen of the waters below the surface in and near Puget Sound, and up into British Colombia.

This winner of the Maryland Blue Crab award delivers precise facts with splendid photos of penguins. Children will glean both knowledge about the birds and experience the devotion of the penguins to their young. Well written and fun to read.

While taking an Introductory course in Oceanography at St.Petersburg Jr.College (FL) I found a copy of this wonderful work in the library. Their acquisition cost was just over $50.00, I see that it now sells for over $100.00, thus I am not sure I wish to buy my own copy. For anyone in the field, it would be a fine additon to their personal library, if one was not in the nearby Public, or College, stacks. While I was particularly interested in the Ecology of Tamp Bay (Fl.) I still found enough basic information which I can related to our Estuary here. I am particularly interested in NEKTON (Blue Crabs and Shriimp) and this text treated them sufficiently well to answer my basic questons. (Net surfers: use your browser on topics such as Estuarine research, Tampa Bay Estuary, etc as a good starting point. This is a fine text, and a scholarly work. It is published by Wiley-Interscience Pubs and certainly carries their fine reputation for worthwhile reading. Those who can handle a modicum of math will enjoy the text, but I rather doubt that the casual reader will ''stay with it'', although it certainly makes a pleasant read, for either an Introductory student, like the undersigned, or for someone who is researching the Science of Oceanography. Too bad it so expensive, it would make a good first year course. As a retired pharmacist, I read many science texts and can only conclude by saying that this one text would certainly fill an important niche in your own personal science library, if you were looking for something on this topic. I guess I will order myself a copy, as I feel that John Day, Charles Hall and W.Mchael Kemp have done a splendid job. Alejandro Yanex-Arancibia brings his vast knowledge of ecology as seen by one from the areas south of the US, in an interesting manner. How would I approve on it? If they ever do an update version, I would love to see chapters on South Pacific benthic organisms, as well as some treatment of life under the Arctic and Antarctic Seas, and maybe throw in some information on other extreme environments such as the Dead Sea, and ocean vent tube worms, that sort of thing... Thanks for the opportunity to review this fine text. William R.Bell, RPh, St. Pete Fla. (14Feb1999) You may contact me at '' Squadcar54@aol.com '' *end of text

Even Sharks Need Friends is a charming children's picturebook featuring distinctive illustrations, made by affixing paper shapes and other physical articles against a painted background and photographing the result. Though blocky and simple, the resulting pictures come alive with three-dimensional effect. The story about a lonely shark who befriends a near-sighted little sea urchin is sure to delight young readers, and additional pages offer simple activities for young people - a short message in secret letter-number code, fun facts about sea creatures, instructions for making a gloompa just like the book shows, black-and-white pictures to color, and a fascinating two-page explanation of exactly how the amazing artwork of Even Sharks Need Friends was created. A one-of-a-kind visual experience especially for young people fascinated by creatures under the sea.

This work covers the state of the art and all recent research dealing with primary producers, their origin in the Archaean, their evolution during Proterozoic, Paleozoic and Mesozoic times, and the classification and ecology of the main groups of algae, including Cyanobacteria and other proalgae. It introduces the reader with the classification of Eukaryotes and the position of eualgae amd metalgae in the tree of life, and also deals with other related topics such as symbiogenesis and the origin of algae, pigments and photosystems, fossil markers and evolution and other related issues. Highly recommended for both researchers in phycology and students of botany, and also for all people interested in biodiversity.

Covers a variety of topics in the evolution of primitive fishes. For example, a useful article considers the evolution of insulin in hagfish. The first pancreatic islets are found in cyclostomes where, for example, hagfish islets contain B and D (somatostatin) cells. In cartilage fish a distinct stomach and duodenum appear, as well as a true endocrine pancreas. In hagfish, during starvation glucose is consumed from skeletal muscle and liver glycogen, while during ingestion of foods resulting in increased glucose levels, insulin levels rise and promote lipid, protein and glycogen synthesis in skeletal muscle.