The
Field
Guide
to
Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents, and Other
Mystery Denizens of the
Deep
by Loren Coleman and Patrick Huyghe
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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.
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"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
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J.P.
Tarcher/Penguin, 2003
ISBN: 1585422525
Trade paperback 358 pages
45 maps & 12 illustrations
$16.95
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