Frogfishes: Biodiversity, Zoogeography, and Behavioral EcologyThe authoritative expert's guide to fascinating frogfishes and their unusual lives. Winner of the PROSE Award for Best Single Volume Reference in Science by the Association of American Publishers Unique among the world's fishes, frogfishes display a bizarre combination of attributes and behaviors that make them a subject of fervent study. Through cunning and trickery, they turn would-be predators into prey; they "walk" across the ocean floor and jet-propel through open water; some lay their eggs in a floating mucoid mass, while others employ complex patterns of parental care; and they are certainly among the most colorful of nature's productions. In Frogfishes, two of the world's leading anglerfish experts, Theodore W. Pietsch and Rachel J. Arnold, bring together an enormous amount of information about these incredible creatures. The only detailed exploration of frogfishes in print, the book touches on everything from their morphology and biomechanics to their diets and habitats. Enhanced with more than 500 spectacular color images, the book also includes • a thorough look at about 5,000 preserved specimens; Unmasking the mysteries of frogfish evolution and phylogenetic relationships through close examination of their fossil record, morphology, and molecular reconstruction, Frogfishes demonstrates the surprising diversity and beauty of this remarkable assemblage of marine shorefishes. |
Contents
1 Introduction | 1 |
2 Approach and Procedures | 24 |
3 What Makes a Frogfish? | 30 |
4 Biodiversity | 38 |
5 Evolutionary Relationships | 364 |
6 Zoogeography | 387 |
7 Behavioral Ecology | 411 |
8 Tips for Aquarists and Divers and the Need for Conservation | 489 |
Reallocation of Nominal Species of Frogfishes | 503 |
Glossary | 509 |
| 519 | |
Illustration Credits | 585 |
| 587 | |