Not so very long ago, the new volume “Ponds, Pools, and Puddles” by Jeremy Biggs and Penny Williams found its way from Devon to my post box in Oregon. The 148th volume in the series, this most recently published volume takes, as I’m confident you could easily guess, as its subject the ecology of the smaller-than-lake sized bodies of fresh water as they appear in the U.K.
For the number of species within the category deemed to be of conservation concern, the amount of attention paid – particularly by the general public – to the world’s freshwater fishes is breathtakingly small. Unless a species is of interest to the sporting community or aquarist hobbyists, is introduced to a new area where it is identified as a threat to the native species or deemed a nuisance to the local humans, or its existence in a particular geographic location involves it in a legal dispute, the outcome of which could ensure or prevent a large corporation from increasing its profits, one rarely hears or reads much news pertaining to the planet’s freshwater fish species.
J. Reese Voshell, Jr.’s A Guide to Common Freshwater Invertebrates of North America isn’t exactly a new book. Originally published in 2002 and ever since being one of the most popular books available from its publisher, McDonald & Woodward, it is one of those books that anyone who knowns anything about the subject, knows that they […]
How many species of freshwater fishes inhabit the rivers, lakes, and streams of Oregon? Interestingly enough, scientific opinions differ on this question. However whatever the actual number may be, Douglas F. Markle’s new A Guide to Freshwater Fishes of Oregon contains images and aides to the identification of most of them.