Pacific Coast Subtidal Marine Invertebrates: A Fishwatcher's Guide

You want to identify the invertebrates you observed in the tide pool or during your recreational dive? Gotshall and Laurent have collected pictures and descriptions of 160 inverts common to the Pacific coast from Alaska to Baja. Needless to say, that leaves out a ton of animals. However, for many divers, just getting close to the appropriate ID is enough. If you want more detail, the authors point the reader to more sophisticated references (although given that this publication dates from 1979, there are certainly more, updated references available). Stash a copy of this book in a ziplock bag and throw it in your dive bag. It will help the time pass by as you blow off your excess N between and after dives.

Pacific Coast Subtidal Marine Invertebrates is a book we have long needed in the diving world of the west coast. It will be useful both to the beginner and the old-timer, no matter how experienced. For who of us (except perhaps for the authors) is so knowledgable as to have seen all of the undersea enviroments from Alaska to Baja California? In a sense, we are all neophytes when we enter the water in a new place for the first time. We may see many familiar plants and animals, but new enviroments are always replete with delightful surprises and unknowns. This field guide will be of great assistance for many of us, helping to clarify these mysteries of the ocean. Dan Gatshall and Bud Laurent very wisely decided not to describe even a major portion of the hundreds of invertebrates that may populate the sea floor in a given region. A compendium of all these species would probably be comprehensible only to a handful of specialists. The authors have presnted here 161 of the commonest invertebrates. Each invertebrate is clearly illustrated with a color photo showing the animal in nature. Such photos can be extremely helpful because appearance in the native habitat is often very unlike an artist's rendition of a preserved specimen. Pacific Coast Subtidal Marine Invertebrates also provides a short decription of every animal, outlining characteristics such as color, shape, anatomical details, typical habitats, and depth and geographical ranges, where such information can be used for identification. --- from book's Foreword