Richard Ellis (1)Rezensionen

For someone who is really interested in whales, marine biology, or the subject of whaling, this book is an excellent choice for you to read. If those subjects aren't really something you care about, then I'd suggest you pass this one by.
Richard Ellis goes into intense depth and detail on the subject of sperm whales, their history in whaling, and how little we actually know about them. It was actually quite an inspiring book, and also extremely frustrating. I myself grew quite unsettled and angered about how many whales humans actually continued to kill, after we definitely knew better and had an idea about the scale of destruction we had already caused to an amazing, irreplaceable order of creatures. Most of what we know about whales came from the time when we killed them in mass numbers, which is shocking to think about.
All in all, it was a really well rounded read, and Ellis manages to keep it interesting, even though the subject is about one specific animal. The reason I couldn't give this book a better rating is because it's in serious need of heavy editing. Ellis desperately needs to release a second edition – in many areas of the book, there are complete paragraphs practically copied and pasted from earlier in the story. The amount of repetition lead to a lot of skim-reading on my part, consequently making the read tedious at times. Additionally, I found the extreme focus on Moby Dick, as well as every one of its movie adaptions, to be somewhat tiresome. However, as I said before, if you're looking for a truly in-depth read about sperm whales, this is the first book I'd recommend.

$29 Amazon

This book was all about discoveries made about the marine life on the planet. It concentrates on those discoveries made in the last hundred years. The book was published in 2005 and there are parts of it that are dated, but still it is worth the time spent to read its 220 informative pages.

This book was chocked full of all kinds of information about marine life of all kinds. It read like an encyclopedia, but a very well written encyclopedia. It is even formatted like an encyclopedia with double columns just as encyclopedias had. Each chapter was short enough to make reading the dense text pleasurable and informative without being boring, but long enough to be a quick survey of the topic. It is perfect for an overview of the subject but not so long that it got boring or too academic.

It was also a blunt book, in that the author simply says at the end that marine life at all levels of the food chain are on the edge of extinction. He warns that fin fisheries are unlikely to ever recover, so the world's oceans will NOT be the source of protein now or in the future. The author does a great job of making people who eat fish feel guilty about eating anything that comes from the ocean except for farmed fish. I eat at Long John Silver's once a year and I think it is time for me to end that practice. I am feeling a bit self-righteous about eating fish. I stopped eating fish, except for the aforementioned once-a-year excursion, after I read Mark Kurlansky's book on Cod almost 20 years ago. This book merely reaffirms my resolve.½

This book takes a look at Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and its effect on wildlife populations, some endangered. Ellis looks more specifically at rhinos, tigers and bears.

It's a very good, informative book, and I don't think the author takes sides (although I am firmly in one camp on the issue, so my judgment could be clouded). He presents a lot of statistics, and it's hard to see how TCM isn't affecting the populations of these endangered species. Yes, there are other things affecting it, as well, but to see what some of these animal parts are worth (in some cases, more than gold), can leave little doubt as to why they are being poached. Of course, there are also other things affecting the numbers of these species, most notably, human encroachment, but the focus of this book is on TCM. The chapter on bears is tough, with the descriptions of extracting bear bile from live bears, but I think people need to know what's going on. There was also a really interesting chapter comparing the history of TCM to the history of Western medicine, and they are surprisingly similar, until more recent times.

And now, one day after writing my review (though I haven't yet posted it anywhere), I read that one subspecies of rhino is officially extinct, partly due to TCM and poaching. One that was barely holding on when this book was written.

3.5 Stars

I'm on the fence with this book. On one hand, I enjoyed the majority of it and found it informative and insightful. However, there were also sections of it that became quite dry and repetitive.

Overall, I would suggest unless you have a strong interest in the subject matter, this might not be the choice for you. I did like the author's ability to relate extinctions back to humans and the issues we cause currently to animal species.

I'm a big fan of Richard Ellis and his writing, and although this wasn't my favorite by him, it was still a well-researched book full of lots of new, interesting facts to entice my brain.

If you are eight years old or feel you could know more about, well, the sea, you should stop reading amature book reviews and read this book. The articles cover a vast seascape of topics in short, arch, perfectly turned phrases. A great reference for all things briny, deep, or both and fun enough to wander through following the not-always-obvious see-alsos.

Richard Ellis: ° 2 april 1938 New York (?), en leefde er bijna zijn hele leven. Was van kindsbeen af geïnteresseerd in de zee en wat erin leefde, vooral in haaien en walvissen. Hij tekende ze en schreef er graag over. Hij haalde een graad in American Civilisation aan de University van Pennsylvenia. In 1969 begon hij te werken aan het American Museum of Natural History en werd er research associate in de afdeling paleontologie. Hij was ook 10 jaar special advisor bij de American Cetacean Society, en lid van de Explorers Club. Hij schreef vele artikels en boeken o.a. The Book of Whales in 1980

Samenvatting

Ellis beschrijft de werkhypothesen van paleontologen en geologen uit de afgelopen 100 jaar, over wat we onder het “uitsterven van dieren en plantensoorten” moeten verstaan. En over de bewijzen die ze daarvoor aanvoerden. We noemen iets “mass extinction of species” wanneer een groot deel van de toen bestaande levende wezens in een geologisch kort tijdsbestek uitstierf. Meestal gebeurde dat tegelijk met plotse, of relatief snelle veranderingen in grote delen van de aarde.

Het bewijzen van oorzakelijke verbanden tussen die veranderingen en het uitsterven van heel veel soorten tegelijk, is heel moeilijk. Al was het maar omdat skeletten van dieren en planten enkel fossielen werden onder bepaalde omstandigheden. Die fossielen moeten dan nog gevonden worden, gedateerd vb. volgens de ouderdom van de geologische laag waarin ze gevonden werden, gedetermineerd en ingedeeld in de stamboom van de soorten.

Er waren ijstijden waarin het klimaat kouder was dan nu en het groeiseizoen voor planten veel korter. Na verloop van tijd zat er zoveel water vastgevroren in ijskappen dat het peil van de oceanen tientallen meters lager werd, en er verbindingen over land droogvielen o.a. tussen West Europa en Groot Brittannië of de Beringzee tussen Azië en Noord Amerika. Er kwamen ook warmere perioden voor, die in sommige delen van de wereld voor droogte en verwoestijning zorgden en in andere voor tropische stortbuien en tornado’s.

Minder lang geleden, toen er al mensen waren, moordden die grote dieren van de jongste ijstijd uit in Noord Amerika (sabeltandtijgers, holenberen, mammoeten…), door erop te jagen of door ze te besmetten met ziekten zoals TBC.

In de 19e eeuw werden in Noord Amerika miljoenen trekduiven op grote schaal met het geweer geschoten. Dat was de hoofdreden waarom hun aantal in één eeuw van 700 miljoen naar niets gingen, ze waren uitgestorven. De rest kwam door het omzetten van woeste grond met bomen erop in akkers, waarin de nog levende duiven niet konden broeden.

In Azië en Afrika werden in de afgelopen 60 jaar, sinds de dekolonisatie, nogal wat grote diersoorten bijna of helemaal uitgeroeid, o.a. neushoorns en tijgers. Allerhande partijen die aan de macht wilden komen of blijven, terroriseerden de plaatselijke bevolking met kalasjnikov’s, en financierden hun handel en wandel o.a. door het stropen van olifantenivoor, hoorns en beenderen van neushoorns, en huiden en ander delen van tijgers, die in de Chinese traditionele geneeskunde voor veel geld verkocht werden. Een alsmaar groeiende bevolking brandde stukken oerwoud en savanne plat voor overlevingslandbouw. En versterkte daarmee de gevolgen van het stropen.

Ellis behandelt zijn onderwerp bijzonder grondig. Hij heeft het over recent ontdekte soorten, wat ons de illusie geeft dat er meer zijn dan we dachten. Hij wijdt twee hoofdstukken aan experimenten om bijna uitgestorven dieren in gevangenschap te kweken om ze daarna terug uit te zetten in de natuur. Of een uitgestorven soort opnieuw te fokken door eigenschappen van verwante nazaten te kruisen tot iets wat erop lijkt, maar het waarschijnlijk niet is. Of door te klonen, wanneer er nog DNA van de uitgestorven soort bestaat.

Dierentuinen hebben zich aangepast aan de noden van de tijd door stamboekhouders te worden voor bepaalde van die kweekprogramma’s in gevangenschap. Er werden een aantal successen geboekt, zonder garanties op lange termijn omdat de grondoorzaken van het uitsterven niet veranderd zijn: de habitat van de dieren is nog altijd vernietigd of ernstig beschadigd, stropen, landbouwvergif, en ziekten zijn niet verdwenen, en concurrentie door exoten die mensen ooit importeerden, ook niet. Er zijn alsmaar meer mensen die een betere levensstandaard nastreven, en bedrijven die daar veel geld mee verdienen, en vermits alles op aarde eindig is, ziet het er voor fauna en flora niet goed uit.

Eigen Bedenkingen

Het boek is één lange opsomming van de verandering van fauna en flora door de tijd, voor zover we die hebben kunnen reconstrueren. Het uitsterven contrasteert sterk met de bekendste passage uit “Over de oorsprong van de soorten” van Darwin, over de evolutie van één soort vink op de Galapagos eilanden in verschillende ondersoorten, elk beter aangepast aan de biotoop en het beschikbaar voedsel van één bepaald eiland. De oorspronkelijke soort had dus lang genoeg kunnen overleven tot die aanpassingen genetisch vastgelegd waren in een ondersoort, waardoor ze vervolgens zelf weggeconcurreerd werd.

De mantra van “No Turning Back” is dat aan alle soorten ooit een eind komt. Er wordt maar kort aangegeven wat ervoor in de plaats kwam, door welke soorten de vorige niche werd overgenomen, of dat de niche door de evolutie van de aarde veranderde of volledig verdween. Voor meer inzichten kan je beter terecht in “Schelpen en beschaving” van Geerat Vermeij.

Een mooi voorbeeld van het nauwgezet opzoekwerk van Ellis gaat over de vaststelling uit 2003 dat van vele soorten roofvissen nog maar 10 % van de “pre-industriële” populatie rondzwemt in de zeeën. [Rapid worldwide depletion of predatory fish communities/ Myers R. and B. Worm/ Nature 423 p. 280-83]
(p. 350 ) … In May 2003 the journal Nature published an article by Ransom Myers and Boris Worm, in which the pre-industrial level of large predatory fishes – tuna, swordfish, marlin, and groupers- and groundfish such as cod, halibut, skates ad flounders – was shown to have been reduced to 10 percent of their former numbers. This is not a typo: ninety percent of all these fish are gone. Myers and Worms, both fisheries biologists at Dalhausie University in Nova Scotia, compiled their data from an analysis of worldwide commercial fisheries, and concluded that “declines of large predators in coastal regions have extended throughout the global ocean, with potentially serious consequences for ecosystems.” ... Probably the most surprising and unexpected near-extinction in recent years has been that of the barn door skate (Raja larvis) that nobody was fishing for at all. For generations, cod fishermen hauled in these unwanted elasmobranches, which at a total of sixteen square feet, approached their namesakes in size. ...

Dit is een overduidelijk geval van ongewilde bijvangst, waarvan het grootste deel niet overleeft, zelfs als die direct terug over boord geworpen wordt. Dichter bij huis: bij het vangen van grijze noordzeegarnaal met grondsleepnetten is er 60 tot 80 percent bijvangst, krabbetjes en kwallen meegerekend.

De hoofdstukken over wat mensen zelf naar de bliksem hebben geholpen door het invoeren van Europees vee, huisdieren, ratten, landbouwgewassen en ziekten tijdens de kolonisatie, en het op grote schaal stropen en vangen van dieren voor het snelle gewin, is deprimerende lectuur. Het lijkt dat er geen kruid gewassen is tegen de onwetendheid en/of het kortzichtig egoïsme van een kleine minderheid, waarop de meerderheid nog altijd geen afdoend weerwerk heeft gevonden.

De ongeremde exponentiële groei van de economie en de vooruitgang van de wetenschap en de techniek, die alle problemen wel zal oplossen die uit de groei van de economie voortkomen, is een lichtzinnige veronderstelling die de soort Homo sapiens eerder vroeg dan laat zelf in de problemen gaat brengen.

Dat het samenhangt met de opvatting dat individuele hebzucht ervoor zal zorgen “als door een onzichtbare hand gedreven” dat dit welvaart voor (sommige) naties en/of winsten voor grote ondernemingen zal opleveren, en dat zij die daarbij het rijkste worden zo weinig mogelijk in hun weg willen om alsmaar meer te hebben, zelf ten koste van de wereld waarin ze leven, komt niet aan bod. Après nous le déluge. Na enkele miljoenen jaren zonder mensen geraakt de aarde er wel bovenop, zoals ze dat al vijf keer heeft gedaan.

Dat is geen toogpraat. In de vijftien jaar na de publicatie van het boek zijn er voldoende tekens aan de wand:
• Donald Trump heeft de handtekening van de USA laten weghalen van het klimaatakkoord in Parijs, en doet er alles aan om het snelle gewin met fossiele brandstof niet te verminderen, en de belastingen te verlagen van aandeelhouders die o.a. daarmee rijker worden.
• Ondanks een bankencrisis gevolgd door een beurscrash eind 2007, is er geen bijsturing gekomen aan de deregulering (Reaganomics) die “giftige” herverpakte schuldcertificaten voor woninghypotheken mogelijk heeft gemaakt. Big money dicteert aan de politiek wat ze wil.
• De reactie van zittende regeringen op “dieselgate” lijkt sterk af te hangen van de voordelen of nadelen voor de eigen nationale economie. VW was de eerst gekende, maar niet de enige scheve schaatsrijder, die de indruk heeft gewekt dat hun auto’s alsmaar minder schadelijke gassen uitstoten, door moedwillig de zwakke kanten van de wetgeving te exploiteren.
• Het leeghalen van de zee heeft nu het stadium bereikt van krill vissen in de wateren van Antartica om aan visboerderijen te verkopen. Als je geen geld mag verdienen met walvissen jagen, dan hoeven walvissen en alle andere zeewezens die dat op hun menu hebben, die krill niet meer voor niets te krijgen.½

At the time of publication, this was one of the most definitive compilations on Architeuthis. Alas, that was 1998, and this book is now showing its age, but it's still a very good survey of the historical and cultural accounts of the giant squid. I checked this out shortly after the Discovery special aired January 27th, 2013 because I was curious about previous information in deadtree edition. Also swore to actually finish an Ellis book because I frequently check them out, but never get to them in time.

Besides the obvious change from no live sightings until last year, the other science/technological difference I noticed is that while discussing how many species there could possibly be within Architeuthis, gene sequencing was never mentioned as a tool. All proposed species were based on morphology, and even then those could be variations between indivduals, life stages, etc... but now that we have the power of sequencers, could we check out preserved specimens and discern patterns? Probably, and that's probably been written about elsewhere but I haven't gotten to it yet.

The species now known as the colossal squid is also mentioned, but not by that name- Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni was the only one given, no common name at that point, only known by Antarctic carcasses. Another interesting thing- Architeuthis sightings and carcasses mentioned are predominantly in the Atlantic, with some in New Zealand but only a handful mentioned in the northern Pacific (which is where footage of live giants have been obtained).

Still, a very interesting read, especially for the historical and mythological contexts of monstrously large cephalopod sightings and then-speculation as to what the living creature might actually be like.

Good book, and I learned quite a few new things about polar bears. My on;y fault with it was that certain parts of the book seemed poorly organized and constituted a miscellany of factoids. The book also contained a lot more historical material than I expected for a book that, based on the cover, was focused on the plight of the polar bear. Still, a good read and recommended to anyone who wants to understand polar bears better.

3.5 stars

This book is all about polar bears, from the time Europeans first came across them up to their current potential peril due to global warming/climate change.

The history is unfortunate, as humans mostly tended, for a long time, to simply shoot them on site, assuming they were a threat (yes, they can be dangerous, but apparently, they are also very curious, and much of their approaching humans seems more to have been from curiosity than aggression). There was information on their behaviour, which I found particularly interesting. There were chapters on zoos and circuses, and on hunting. The last chapters focused on global warming and how it will affect polar bears and other wildlife in the Arctic; I’ve read enough about this that I’m not surprised by any of it, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating (and sad). There were also plenty of photos, both mixed in with the text and in a separate colour section.½

Ellis's fascinating history of the Atlantic sea floor is enhanced immeasurably by his fantastic and creepy white-on-black illustrations of the phantasmagorical denizens of the deep.

The Empty Ocean makes for compelling (and frightening) reading. We have always looked at the ocean as an inexhaustible resource, but Ellis makes clear we are dangerously close to killing off a number of species, and we have no idea what the consequences will be when they're gone.

When this book was published, no one had ever seen a living giant squid in its natural habitat. Much like the Colossal Squid today, we'd seen dead and dying ones and remnants in predator's stomachs, but never the real thing. Ellis's book paints a fascinating picture of this elusive creature and its understudied deep ocean habitat.

Ellis's books deals with many aspects of the Atlantis phenomenon - Plato's motives in telling the story, more-or-less reasonable attempts to identify a real Atlantis, its use in modern fiction and mysticism - but concentrates on the idea that the story represents a distorted memory of the end of Minoan Crete and/or the catastrophic eruption of Thera (Santorini), which may or may not have been a factor in the former. Ellis himself, it should be noted, doesn't believe in this idea, but thinks that Plato wanted to spin a story with a moral, not report ancient history or retell a legend.

This could have been a great book, but it's marred by two significant problems. First, there are too many repetitions, the same events and ideas being recounted repeatedly, from slightly different points of view. One might think this the result of editing together a number of originally separate essays or articles, but according to what Ellis says in the forword about the book's origin that doesn't seem to apply. Whatever the reason, it's annoying and sloppy.

Second, and worse, Ellis is also careless about facts, the book being littered by little errors, some just sloppy, like claiming that 1500 BC is about twenty-five centuries ago, some seemingly from careless reading of sources, like mixing up AD and BC dates. Sometimes he doesn't seem to have quite understood his sources, like in a brief discussion of language where he implies that Greek was succeeded by "Cretan" - does he confuse the temporal order of Greek and the undeciphered language of the Linear A inscriptions, or did he misunderstand the replacement of Mycenaean Greek of the Linear B inscriptions by the Doric dialects of classical Crete to involve a non-Greek incoming "Cretan" language? Most of the errors I noticed concerns issues outside Ellis's own speciality of marine biology, but at one point he confuses the Sirenia and the Sirenidae; presumably he knows better than that, but again, was careless, and evidently the publisher didn't have a competent fact checker either.

This book should be entitled, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Cephalopods - which, if you have a thing for cephalopods, is never enough.

This is the first book that I've gotten through Netgalley. When I saw this was available and that Richard Ellis had written it (I've been meaning forever to read some of his stuff), I knew I had to sign up to see if I was eligible. I'm so glad I did!

Though the book is titled based on the vampire squid (not quite a squid, not quite an octopus, but in its own category), it covers more than just this elusive, fascinating creature. It actually discusses cephalopods in general, focusing on octopuses (I still miss saying 'octopi') and squid.

I've always been fascinated by cephalopods, and octopuses in particular. They are extremely intelligent, especially for being invertebrates. If you search for 'octopus intelligence' in Google, you'll see all kinds of fascinating articles and web sites come up. If you are interested, I'd definitely recommend the Sy Montgomery piece on octopuses from Orion Magazine last year, Deep Intellect, which went viral (as viral as a magazine article can go, I guess) towards the end of 2011.

Ellis spends time discussing the history of the discovery of the vampire squid, its anatomy, evolution, and characteristics, while comparing and discussing other cephalopod species. The book also includes photography and illustrations. So if you get this book on the Kindle, try to view it on the computer or through some other tablet, so you don't miss the color pictures. The black and white of the Kindle don't do them justice and you miss a lot of details.

Though reading information about various cephalopods and their biology seems like a boring endeavor, somehow Ellis makes it seem really interesting. The book at times seems conversational, which also keeps your attention. He also sprinkles bits of dry, subtle humor throughout, which I really enjoyed.

For example: "Squid don't need a breath of air - they breathe water through their gills, like fishes - but several squid species can and do leave the water; mariners in all oceans occasionally find little squid on the decks after a night of sailing. The Humboldt squid (Dosidicus) has also been observed to get itself airborne; if a hundred-pound, ink-squirting, beak-snapping squid lands on your deck, you might have a bit of a problem."

One thing that this book helped me unlearn was the idea that sperm whales and giant squid have epic underwater battles in the deep ocean:

Scars from these teeth [chitinous teeth on the suckers of giant squid!] are often seen on the skin of sperm whales, which has led to the belief that titanic battles between these two giants take place in the deep, but it is now fairly certain that the only reason the squid left those scars was because it was struggling - often unsuccessfully - not to be eaten.

Another interesting thing I learned is that Jaron Lanier is a fan of cephalopods. I met Lanier once; he's an interesting person. So odd, how two seemingly unrelated things can come together.

There's no better way to sum up then this:

The dense, liquid kingdom of the octopus and the squid is another world altogether; a world denied to earth-bound mammals like us: we cannot breathe what they breathe, move the way they move, see the way they see, communicate the way they do. Beneath the surface of the oceans, there lives an alien culture, with multiple arms, multiple brains, and multiple ways of solving the problems of staying alive, more like the modus vivendi that one might encounter on one of Jupiter's watery moons. The naturalist Henry Beston was probably not talking about octopuses when he the following, but he might well have been: "In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time; fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth."

Note: I received a copy of the ebook through Netgalley.

Note: I received this copy from Open Road via Netgalley

Ellis looks at the various factors that have contributed and still are to the extinction or the species being threatened. The majority of this book deals with extinction that has occurred in the past and what might transpire (or inevitably will at the rate we are going) in the future. Ellis is able to masterfully bring science to the everyday individual. While some parts are still dry Ellis mixes in a variety of interesting anecdotes and facts from modern things.

One of the key points people should take from this book is just how much of an impact humans have had on bringing forth the extinction of species and moving the process along.

Also on http://lrjohnson13.blogspot.com/2012/10/no-turning-back-life-and-death-of.html

After reading Peter Benchley’s Beast I starting getting more and more interested in Giant Squid. With this in mind I bought ‘The search for the Giant squid’.

To be totally honest I was hoping for more tales of encounters and the mythology surrounding the squid. Instead the book ran like an encyclopaedia with whole paragraphs being dedicated to just figures and statistics.

A whole chapter is dedicated to why the squid is called so many different things by different people… yawn!

A lot of the book I just scanned picking out the various interesting bits of data. A lot of what is covered has been long outdated or just proven wrong. If you want a quick and interesting read give this a miss and have a quick look on wiki, also saving a few quid in the process.

Ellis' description of tuna farming was eye-opening, as was the state of the bluefin tuna fishery. One has to wonder just how long the fishery can be sustained while the japanese market for a-grade sashimi pays a small fortune for each fish? Unfortunately, the book was full of repetition, which made it a tiresome read at times.½

A look at Traditional Chinese Medicine, and its impact on endangered species. The writing style is a bit sluggish and uninteresting, and the author makes too many statements about the effectiveness of the treatments without any evidence to back up his claims. The book also suffered from an overwhelming amount of redundancy.½

An excellent book for those interested in the giant monsters of the sea. They are real. It covers the search for specimens, proper Linnean Binomial classification, biology, myths and much more. Enjoy!

The author mentions in the preface how this book ended "heavier on quotes than it might have been." I'll say. I reached the point where even when a page did not contain a citation I would often find my attention wandering to note the fact of there being no citation. I would be less harsh with my rating if it wasn't for his having authored at least 14 previous books. He says this one is different since it deals with medicine - something he is not particularly knowledgeable about. Fair enough. He should know about writing compelling narrative. Fair enough?½

I approached this completely ignorant of the subject, but came away not feeling any more informed. There is a plethora of accounts of sightings throughout the book, but they are all much the same and the feeling of deja-vu soon came over me. The subject itself is fascinating, but the lack of definitive knowledge means the book degenerates into a literature review. Extremely disappointing.½

I picked up this book at the library. I was researching TCM and its impact on tiger populations for a presentation. This book was interesting but I found that it bogged down when discussing all the non-governmental organizations and their roles in protecting the tiger. Ellis is a journalist, not a biologist, and therfore has a somewhat unique take on the subject. However, I must admit that I basically skimmed the last quarter or so of the book. The discussion of the NGOs just did not interest me at all. I would have enjoyed a closer look at TCM itself without all the NGO stuff.

Fine book on recent extinctions and endangered species.

Terrific art!! What a masterful book on an absolutely mesmerizing subject. Traces the evolution of the various marine reptile families concisely and yet very readably. No Paleontology library is complete without it.