New Book - Neville Colemans Nudibranch Encyclopedia

[Dave H 0]

For a full copy of the review see:

http://www.daveharasti.com/articles/Nudibr...yclopaedia.html

 

 

Neville Coleman 2008

ISBN: 978-0-947325-41-1

 

WOW!!! Yesterday in the post I received a brand new copy of Neville Colemans "Nudibranchs Encyclopaedia Catalogue of Asia/Indo-Pacific Sea Slugs". This new book is a must have for nudibranch enthusiasts or for anyone that is interested in learning about marine biodiversity.

 

Neville Coleman is the publisher of many fine marine books, including the very popular 1001 nudibranchs that is probably the most popular nudibranch book ever produced. However his latest offering, the Nudibranchs Encyclopaedia is easily his best publication to date. There are several reasons why this book is so good:

 

Photos: There are over 3,000 images in this book and they are of excellent quality and of a large enough size to make it easy for Identifying nudibranchs. Unlike 1001 nudibranchs which crammed 15 images onto the page, this book only has 8 photos per page which makes it much easier to recognise the nudibranchs and look at all their identifying features. Photos have been provided by many outstanding photographers including Roger Steene, Takaka Uno, Nigel Marsh and even I managed to have quite a few of my nudie pics published, including my all time favourite nudie discovery which Neville kindly called "Harasti's Onchidoris"

 

Book Size: The book is roughly B5 in size which in my view is a great size for travelling as its not too big. The encyclopaedia also has a beautiful hard cover which I really like as they look better, sit well on the book shelf and last longer. The book is also 416 pages, which makes it just over 2cm thick!

 

Comprehensive: This book includes many photographs of nudibranchs that are newly seen or rarely recorded. Given that Neville started photographing nudibranchs back in the 60s when he travelled Australia documenting its marine life he has a great collection of nudibranch species many that havent been seen for many years. Each species photo is accompanied with family name, scientific name, common name, authors/dates, location data, size and natural history. There is enough information with each image to obtain an understanding of where you could find each species, what they can be found on and how big they grow.

 

There have been various contributors to the encyclopaedia however most importantly its development has been assisted by some of the most respected nudibranch taxonomists in the world including Bob Burn, Dr Richard Willan, Dr Bill Rudman and Dr Terry Gosliner. The input from the relevant experts ensure that the taxonomic identifications are accurate and up to date with the most recent species revisions.

 

Introduction: Neville has written a great introduction on the world of nudibranchs in easy to explain terms which is straightforward to understand for even the newest of slug enthusiasts. The introduction covers all the important stuff about nudibranch biology, where to find them, what to they eat, camouflage, mating and mimicry and there is enough information in the first section of the encyclopedia to help anyone write a school assignment!

 

This book now proudly sits on the top of my marine library alongside "Nudibranchs of the World by Debelius and Kuiter" which is another nudibranch guide that I highly recommend.

 

The cost of the book is $99 and it can be purchased from http://www.nevillecoleman.com.au

 

cheers,

Dave