Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0-8135-2398-2 (hard cover); ISBN 0-8135-2399-0 (paper)
Please send questions, comments, corrections to lpollock@drew.edu

CONTENTS:

Introduction:

Preparation of this work has been shaped by my 25 years career in teaching about the marine fauna of the northeast. I have watched students thrill to the diversity and abundance of marine life but struggle to identify them using conventional keys filled with incomprehensible terminology and undecipherable characteristics.

My goal in producing this work is to provide a user-friendly method for quickly and relatively easily making a preliminary determination of the identity of members of this regional fauna. I have used characters which make identifications easy, down-playing jargon, and avoiding a reliance on evolutionarily significant but practically obscure features. I have also provided references to sources to which the user should refer in order to confirm the tentative identifications made using this (or any) set of keys.

But treating details of construction of hundreds of specimens leads to an equal number of possibilities for error. Further, taxonomy and systematics are evolving fields inevitably leading to revisions of species names and/or their placement in classification. Finally, by limiting coverage to the most common types requires estimations of relative abundance which may exclude species which really ought to be included. These reasons, and the revisions they require, begin to make any species reference start down the path toward obsolescence even before it is finally published.

I hope to delay that process in part by maintaining a listing of corrections, adjustments, and additions here, as I become aware of them. Comments from readers including corrections, updates, improvements, and nominations for inclusion will be gratefully received, either by contacting me through my email address (lpollock@drew.edu) or my mailing address (see heading on home page). Please feel encouraged to recheck these listings from time to time.

Back
 
 
 
 
 
 

Acknowledgments:
    My thanks to the following individuals who have contributed to the adjustments listed above:
E.L. Bousfield, R. Capen,  J.T. Carlton
 
 
 

Return to CONTENTS; HOME