Author: Evelyn B Sherr
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Rating: WORTHY!
Evelyn Sherr has a BS in Biology and a PhD in Zoology. She's Professor Emeritus in the Oregon State University's Ocean Ecology and Biogeochemistry department. Judged from her writing in this book, she also has a sly sense of humor and her knowledge of salt marsh life is quite 'littorally' amazing. There is one thing on which I have her beat, though: I know that snakes are venomous, not poisonous! Although I guess some snakes might be poisonous if not cooked properly before eating...!
The book is pretty dense and strong on science, but it's not dry and unreadable. Obviously it isn't for everyone, but it is for anyone who has an interest in wildlife, especially if you live in Georgia, or plan on visiting and don't want to end up bitten or stung (or even eaten) by something nasty when all you wanted to do was enjoy the coastline.
So I know what you're wondering: what the heck is a mummichog? Well I didn't know either, and I'm not going to tell you because I have to admit the obscurity of the title was part of the attraction, as I'm sure the author planned. All I'm going to say is that it has nothing to do with killer fish.
The book is well organized and supported with a host of really nice quality gray-scale photographs. I found myself wishing for more, even so. So many animals and plants are mentioned that it would have been nice to see a few more of them. There were too many to show images of them all, but fortunately, if you're reading this on something like an iPad, you can have your browser open, and do an image search to keep up. I was doing this almost spastically. It's one of the major advantages that ebooks have over print books.
And this author really does cover everything. Here's a list of the chapter headers so you can gauge how thorough she is for yourself:
- Marine habitats of the Georgia Coast
- What You Don't See: Microscopic Life
- Marsh Grass, Live Oaks, Sea Oats
- Creatures of the Black Goo
- Mud Dwellers of Marshes and Creeks
- Creepy Crawlies: Insects and Spiders
- Marsh Life: Scales
- Marsh Life: Feathers and Fur
- What Lies Beneath; Zooplankton
- Attachment to Place: Settlers
- Sound Swimmers: Nekton
- On, and Under, the Beach: Living in the Sand
- Loggerheads
- Shore Birds
- seasons in the Sun
- The Once and Future Coast
There is also: three appendices, a bibliography, and an index. And there's a preface which I didn't read. I never read forewords, introductions, prefaces, prologues and whatever. Just a personal quirk.
I love the chapter titles that played on movie titles such as 'Creatures of the Black Goo', and 'What Lies Beneath', and the play on words in 'Sound Swimmers'. In the 'Feathers and Fur' chapter I learned of the rice rat - something I had never heard of before. That sounds so cute - and looks just as cute. Any budding animator needs to Disney-fy that before Disney does!
The chapters, as the list above indicates, covered everything from microscopic life to the megafauna of the area, which includes whales and squid. It covered pretty much every class of life there is, from invertebrates to vertebrates, and pretty much every group those two orders include, and it did not shy away from plant life either, which was really nice.
I don't normally pay attention to covers because the author typically has little or nothing to do with them unless they self publish, but in this case, and regardless of who chose the cover, I have to say it was part of the attraction for me. It reminded me of the time I visited a salt marsh (in Texas, not in Georgia, and I walked with my dogs along a raised boardwalk just like this one, hoping the gators wouldn't launch themselves up onto it and try to take one of the dogs! I have to say that Texas gators are pretty decent folk. I saw them in the marsh, their eyes just above the water, but they didn't try anything funny, which just goes to show why you never see a gator doing stand-up comedy. It was a bit scary, but great fun and quite bracing.
So before I wax lyrical with an ocean of comments, let me beach this review by simply saying that I loved this book, loved the way it was written, the sweet sense of humor and the extensive detail of everything to be found in nature on the Georgia coast. I recommend this.
