The Marine World: A Natural History of Ocean Life
By Frances Dipper
Illustrated by Marc Dando
First published 2016; revised reprint 2019
If you love books about the ocean and its inhabitants then try this, the product of a lifetime spent by Frances Dipper happily observing and studying marine organisms the world over. It has been brought to colourful life by a myriad of enthusiastic underwater photographers and by Marc Dando, the renowned natural history illustrator. This book is for the inquisitive: for the naturalist on, in and around the ocean, for the student who needs more detail, for the scientist wanting background knowledge, for the diver exploring what he is seeing, for the fisherman’s finds, for parents to answer “what’s this, mum (or dad)?”, for anyone who loves the ocean.
The Marine World is an immense, three-dimensional living space inhabited by marine life that varies from the mundane to the bizarre. Its salty influence extends up river estuaries, over seashores and inland with brine-laden spray. This book covers all those organisms that live in, on and around the ocean bringing together in a single text everything from the miniscule to the immense. With sections on all the major groups of marine invertebrates, plus plants, fungi and bacteria as well as fish, reptiles, mammals and birds, it provides an insight into the existence and way of life or almost everything living in the ocean. Each animal or plant is found in its own particular place and the book encompasses principal ocean habitats and ecosystems including open water, seashores, deepsea, coral reefs and many more. Written with clear, accessible text and illustrated throughout with photographs and detailed drawings, this book provides in depth information to provide answers for each group on ‘what?’ ‘where?’ and ‘how?’, via sections on identification, distribution, structure, biology, classification and conservation.
Frances Dipper 