From the book...


Each year more than a hundred new species are discovered in the world’s oceans. It’s true that many of these new species are tiny (yet big enough to see without a microscope). But some newly discovered species are considerably larger. In fact, a new species larger than about six feet long is discovered every five years or so in the oceans. ..

We recognize that it would be easiest to sell the existence of Sea Serpents to the public and to science if it involved just one type of creature yet unrecognized. But the sea, lakes, and rivers are a diverse environment, and reality demands otherwise. Nature has never been known for its simplicity.

In producing this field guide, we have reviewed all past efforts at classifying the world’s marine and freshwater unknowns. The efforts of Antoon Oudemans, Rupert Gould, Ivan Sanderson, and Bernard Heuvelmans have been particularly influential. But while relying heavily on the work of others, we believe that our new fourteen-part classification system manages to introduce some new concepts that we feel best encompasses all the evidence available to date. Perhaps even more significant, ours is the first attempt at classifying not only sea serpents, but lake monsters as well, a topic that even our predecessors have largely shied away from.

"I suggest that before you conclude that lake monsters and sea serpents are all nonsense, you examine the information in this superb compilation...The scope of the work is monumental."
--Roy P. Mackal

"The book is a collection of sea monsters accounts and a classification that updates Heuvelmans classic book of 1968. A good introductory text, experienced hunters in the deep will find a number of novelties not published in books so far. It mentions recent discoveries of large marine animals, recent promblematic corpses, new estimates of unknown animal numbers and as well as new tidbits of monsterology from around the world. Most of these items have not been compiled before in a aquatic monster book so these alone make the book worth buying for the reader interested in more than the standard Heuvelmans derived material in most sea monster coffee table books...A fine text which whilst accessible to all will also be appreciated by the more advanced scholar of marine monsters."
--Charles Paxton

"The rare victory that comes with the 'official' recognition of a once-dubious aquatic creature (a giant squid, say, or a megamouth shark) has emboldened the authors to attempt the definitive guide to the elusive 'mystery creatures' that might populate over two-thirds of the planet's surface."
--Publishers Weekly

"The Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep is probably the most important contribution to its field since the publication of Bernard Heuvelmans' classic, In the Wake of the Sea Serpents."
--Nick Redfern