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The deep ocean is home to some of the most unusual of all fishes. This book is the first Fish Physiology volume devoted to these bizarre undersea creatures. Practically every organ system is affected by the constraints imposed by benthic pressure, the absence of light, and the relatively scarce supply of both food and mates. Deep Sea Fishes demonstrates how these fishes living in extremely harsh conditions metabolize, behave, and evolve.
“A masterful accomplishment—Allen, Pondella and Horn have assembled a talented team of experts who produce authoritative, up-to-date accounts. This book will be used as the primary text in many fish biology courses and as a valuable reference elsewhere. Here is a wealth of data waiting to be mined by legions of graduate students as they generate the new ideas that will motivate marine ecology for years.”—Peter Sale, Editor of Coral Reef Fishes: Dynamics and Diversity in a Complex Ecosystem "A copiously illustrated and comprehensive interpretation of the past, present, and future state of over 500 species of fishes in Californian waters. A compilation of virtually all the many important studies on the ecology of California marine fishes."—Bruce B. Collette, National Marine Fisheries Service and co-author of The Diversity of Fishes
In 1943, with the German Sixth Army annihilated at Stalingrad and Rommel's Afrika Korps in full retreat after defeat at El Alamein, Winston Churchill's War Cabinet met to discuss the opening of a new front. Its battles would be fought not on the beaches of Normandy or in the jungles of Burma but amid the blizzards and glaciers of the Antarctic. Originally conceived as a means by which to safeguard the Falkland Islands from Japanese invasion and to deny harbours in the sub-Antarctic territories to German surface raiders and U-boats, the expedition also sought to re-assert British sovereignty in the face of incursions by neutral Argentina. As well as setting in train a sequence of events that ...
Before there were mammals on land, there were dinosaurs. And before there were fish in the sea, there were cephalopods-the ancestors of modern squid and Earth's first truly substantial animals. Cephalopods became the first creatures to rise from the seafloor, essentially inventing the act of swimming. With dozens of tentacles and formidable shells, they presided over an undersea empire for millions of years. But when fish evolved jaws, the ocean's former top predator became its most delicious snack. Cephalopods had to step up their game. Many species streamlined their shells and added defensive spines, but these enhancements only provided a brief advantage. Some cephalopods then abandoned th...
From the author of Nursery Earth, a “nimble, fast, surprising, smart, and weird in the very coolest sense of the word” (Sy Montgomery) exploration of the sometimes enormous, often bizarre creatures that ruled the seas long before the first dinosaurs—a Science Friday Book Club Pick Cephalopods, Earth’s first truly substantial animals, are still among us: Their fascinating family tree features squid, octopuses, nautiluses, and more. The inventors of swimming, cephs presided over the sea for millions of years. But when fish evolved jaws, cephs had to step up their game (or end up on the menu). Some evolved defensive spines. Others abandoned their shells entirely, opening the floodgates for a tidal wave of innovation: masterful camouflage, fin-supplemented jet propulsion, and intelligence we’ve yet to fully measure. In Monarchs of the Sea, marine biologist Danna Staaf unspools how these otherworldly creatures once ruled the deep—and why they still captivate us today. Publisher’s Note: Monarchs of the Sea was previously published in hardcover as Squid Empire.
No environment on Earth imposes greater physical and biological constraints on life than the deep oceanic midwaters. Near-freezing temperatures, the absence of sunlight, enormous pressure, and a low food supply make habitation by any living thing almost inconceivable. Yet 160 species of anglerfishes are found there in surprising profusion. Monstrous in appearance, anglerfishes possess a host of unique and spectacular morphological, behavioral, and physiological innovations. In this fully illustrated book, the first to focus on these intriguing fish, Theodore W. Pietsch delivers a comprehensive summary of all that is known about anglerfishes—morphology, diversity, evolution, geographic distribution, bioluminescence, and reproduction.
Through the ages natural historians have puzzled over how animals work, wavering between a vitalist belief in a soul animating bodily functions and a mechanistic outlook in which animal body parts are seen as pieces of organic machinery. Animal as Machine explores the life, work, and ideas of scientists who, branding themselves as physiologists, subscribed to mechanistic concepts to explain how animals acquire and process food, breathe, circulate their blood, and sense their environment. As medical physiology thrived in the nineteenth century, zoologists struggled to forge their own distinctive physiology predicated on understanding animal functions in a context of environmental adaptation a...