How many marine crustaceans are there around our coasts? Can you guess? No? Well maybe this book isn’t for you unless you are on the cusp of becoming a Pan Species Lister (see here). There are about 2,600 marine crustaceans out of a UK species total of about 3,800 crustacean species.
Most of these marine crustaceans appear to be fascinating and/or weird and/or very beautiful – quite a lot are all three. I hadn’t heard of many of these species by their vernacular specific names but they are mostly crabs, lobsters and shrimps. Oh, and barnacles. And copepods, isopods and ostracods. And the amazing pycnogonids – sea spiders.
To see some of these species you’ll need to be a diver or at least a snorkeller but you’ll find some simply by rock-pooling.
I’m not sure how often I’ll use this book but it was a great pleasure to look through its pages and I expect there will be future occasions when I need this book and it isn’t to hand!
The cover? That’s a crab so it tells you much about the book. I’d give the cover 7/10.
Marine Crustaceans of Britain and Ireland by Lin Baldock, Charlotte Bolton and Iain M. T. Dixon is published by Princeton University Press.
You could buy this book from Bookshop.org and I have set up a booklist to make that easy through this link https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/MarkAvery Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org and I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase
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