Photographic Guide to Sea and Shore Life of Britain and North-West Europe

by Gibson, Ray; Hextall, Ben; Rogers, Alex

• ISBN13: 9780198500414
• ISBN10: 0198500416
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-08-09
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This photographic guide to sea shore animals and plants represents a completely new approach to field guides. It is aimed at those who wish to find and identify organisms encountered on the sea shore or immediately offshore quickly and easily while promoting their conservation. Uniquely, each species is illustrated by a photograph and, in most cases, accompanied by a line drawing that emphasizes the critical features for identification and a map to show the distribution of the species in North-West Europe. The text itself deliberately focuses on features that complement the photographs and facilitate identification non-destructively--where, for example, burrowing worms can be identified by digging them up and therefore killing them, only the cast, the part usually seen, is shown. Stress is laid on the importance of exploiting all available information for locating and identifying each species--if two species have identical appearance they are described separately and behavioral, geographical, or seasonal features that distinguish them are described in the text. There is no other guide to seashore organisms like this one; those available are either less comprehensive or less well illustrated. It will appeal to beachcombers of all levels, from families to students and professionals, as well to divers and those visiting the proliferating numbers of commercially run marine aquaria that are open to the public.

Table of Contents

About this book	vii
Introduction	ix
Plants (Kingdom Plantae)	2	(62)
Lichens	2	(6)
Seaweeds and flowering plants	8	(56)
Algae	8	(54)
Angiosperms (flowering plants)	62	(2)
Animals (Kingdom Animalia)	64	(358)
Sponges	64	(22)
Phylum Porifera	64	(22)
Anemones, corals, sea firs, jellyfishes, and sea gooseberries	86	(46)
Phylum Cnidaria	86	(42)
Phylum Ctenophora (comb jellies, sea gooseberries)	128	(4)
Non-segmented worms	132	(10)
Phylum Platyhelminthes (flatworms)	132	(2)
Phylum Nematoda (roundworms)	134	(1)
Phylum Nemertea (ribbon worms)	134	(6)
Phylum Sipuncula (peanut worms)	140	(1)
Phylum Echiura (acorn worms)	141	(1)
Segmented worms	142	(26)
Phylum Annelida	142	(26)
Insects, crabs, barnacles, shrimps, and sea spiders	168	(54)
Phylum Arthropoda	168	(50)
Phylum Pycnogonida	218	(4)
Molluscs	222	(94)
Phylum Mollusca	222	(94)
Horseshoe worms, lamp shells, and bryozoans	316	(14)
Phylum Phoronida (horseshoe worms)	316	(2)
Phylum Brachiopoda (lamp shells)	318	(1)
Phylum Bryozoa (Ectoprocta, Polyzoa)	318	(12)
Echinoderms	330	(30)
Phylum Echinodermata	330	(30)
Ascidians and fishes	360	(60)
Phylum Chordata	360	(1)
Subphylum Tunicata (Urochordata) (sea squirts, tunicates)	360	(1)
Subphylum Cephalochordata (lancelets)	361	(15)
Subphylum Euchordata (Vertebrata)	376	(44)
Flotsam and jetsam	420	(2)
Acknowledgements	422	(1)
Index	423