A splendid book emerging from the Census of Marine Life has just been published, The Biology of Squat Lobsters, GCB Poore, ST Ahyong, and J Taylor (eds.), CRC, Boca Raton, 2011, available from Amazon and other booksellers. Jesse Ausubel had the privilege to pen the Foreword:
The Biology of Squat Lobsters is not obviously the title of an important and beautiful book, which this is. The book matters because, as editors Gary Poore, Shane Ahyong, and Joanne Taylor explain, squat lobsters dominate, numerically and visibly, crustacean life on seamounts, continental margins, many shelf environments, coral reefs, and hydrothermal vents. The book matters even more because it exemplifies 21st century global biology. The seventeen authors from nine countries address variety, ancestry, and global distribution, spanning animals from waters of frosty Norway to toasty Philippines. They address development, physiology, and ecology, including how squat lobsters thrive in the exotic seafloor environments independent of energy from the sun. They address the big humans who make a living from squat lobster fisheries and the tiny parasites for whom the lobsters are hosts. They address squat lobsters making war and making love. Using the many tools of biology, traditional and new, the authors describe and explain what is known and unknown about 1000 forms of life. The skill and generosity of more than forty photographers and artists make the animals and book a joy to behold.
As one of the founders of the cooperative international research program The Census of Marine Life, I can say with certainty and pleasure that The Biology of Squat Lobsters is one of the highest realizations of the program. To understand life, we must observe and collect, analyze, and integrate as the authors and their colleagues have done. To protect life, we must feel awe at the treasure around and sustaining us. Anyone reading this masterwork will come to know that squat lobsters are not only Galatheoids and Chyrostolids, they are rubies and sapphires, set here in a scientific crown worthy of their perfection.