An Age of Fishes

An Age of Fishes The Development of the Most Successful Vertebrate by Joy O. I. Spoczynska

Published by Charles Scribner�s Sons, New York 1976, ISBN#: 0684144956, Hard bound, Very Good condition (former library book with protective mylar over-jacket and labels on over-jacket, rubber stamping on top page edges, inside back cover and first page, number in ink on first page, presentation book plate inside front cover, small hole cut in back of jacket, first blank page has been removed). The fish is the most successful vertebrate on Earth. Fish outnumber all other species of backboned animals twenty to one. Sheer adaptability has enabled them to achieve their dominant position in the animal world and to be capable of colonizing almost every stretch of water on earth. In this well written book Joy Spoczynska, an eminent ichthyologist, traces their development from earliest time. A dramatic example is the coelanth, living specimens of which have been found in trawlers� nets in recent times, although until the 1930s paleontologists had believed it to have been extinct for twenty million years. The author also explains how and why certain types of fish have evolved to benefit of their kind, and often of man. This book also reveals the excitement of what must be one of the most striking corroborations of Darwin�s theory of the survival of the fittest. It describes how fish have survived in so many forms in a highly competitive and dangerous world. One method is safety in numbers, as exemplified by the cod which can at one spawning lay from three to six million eggs. Some fish are equipped with venom and electricity to protect them from their enemies. Others live in depths of perpetual darkness, possibly finding their way and their mates by means of smell. This is an extraordinary and timely book which can be enjoyed for the pure interest of the narrative as well as for the information it supplies. It is further enhanced by many exquisite drawings. The table of contents contains the following major headings: Twenty to one; The fish � equipped for survival; Problems of aquatic living; The food chain of the waters; The feeding adaptations of fish; The senses of fish; The breeding adaptations of fish; The emergent fish; Advances in fishy evolution; Venom and electricity in fish; The world of the abyss; Light in the darkness; Fish and man; Glossary; etc. The book is approximately 9 1/4 X 6 7/8 inches in size and contains 152 pages. The jacket price is $10. Another copy of the book is currently offered on the Internet at Flora & Fauna Books for $30. For more info about this other book, Visit:Book Web Site

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