What Would You Like To See In A Critter Book?

[dwashbur]

We're book-poor in our house because we love to know as much as we can about the aquatic neighbors that we encounter in our dives. But like anything else, there's always room for improvement. One thing I would like to see in a general critter book of the Lamb/Hanby type would be what each critter eats. This would be especially interesting for fish (I found out by accident that the famous Monterey monkeyface eel eats algae), but also for a lot of invertebrates. Behrens' book gives this info fairly consistently for nudibranchs, but what does a red-eyed medusa eat? How about a striped perch? Or a gumboot chiton? I would love to see a reasonably comprehensive book that includes such info, where known. I realize there are some cases, such as the spotted aglaja, in which we still don't know, but it would be easy enough for such a book to say "diet as yet unknown" or something like that. Anyway, that's one thing I'd like to see.

How about you?

[BASSMAN]

We're book-poor in our house because we love to know as much as we can about the aquatic neighbors that we encounter in our dives. But like anything else, there's always room for improvement. One thing I would like to see in a general critter book of the Lamb/Hanby type would be what each critter eats. This would be especially interesting for fish (I found out by accident that the famous Monterey monkeyface eel eats algae), but also for a lot of invertebrates. Behrens' book gives this info fairly consistently for nudibranchs, but what does a red-eyed medusa eat? How about a striped perch? Or a gumboot chiton? I would love to see a reasonably comprehensive book that includes such info, where known. I realize there are some cases, such as the spotted aglaja, in which we still don't know, but it would be easy enough for such a book to say "diet as yet unknown" or something like that. Anyway, that's one thing I'd like to see.

How about you?

That would be a difficult book to publish. But if there was one like that I would buy it.

I would like to know when and where the 6 gill's hang out.

[LCF]

I would like to see several pictures of each creature, perhaps from different angles. But I realize that for some of them, it's difficult, because they're uncommon or the author hasn't been able to acquire more than one image.

I really love Jan Kocian's pages, with multiple images AND text regarding the animal's preferred habitat or behavior.