The World Beneath: The Life and Times of Unknown Sea Creatures and Coral Reefs

(Hardback)

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Meet the world's most fascinating sea creaturessee the lives and curiosities of colourful fish and coral reefsthis spectacular volume has more than 300 color photos and extraordinary text from a leading marine biologist and underwater photographer, and an international expert on seahorses.

In this richly informative volume, brimming with new discoveries and more than three hundred colourful images of jaw-dropping fish and coral reefs, you'll swim in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans; you'll be dazzled in the Coral Triangle and amazed in Triton Bay. Up close you'll meet the Cenderawasih fairy wrasse, with its florescent yellow streak; the polka-dot longnose filefish; and the multicolored seadragon. There are scarlet-colored corals, baby-blue sponges, daffodil crinoids, and all sorts of mystifying creatures that change colour at the drop of a hat. The whale shark is almost larger than life and the author's beloved pygmy seahorse, unless photographed, is almost too tiny to see.

The wondrous creatures inside are charmers and tricksters and excel in the arts of seduction and deception, and you'll have the rare chance to see and delight in their antics. You'll also learn what they eat, how they play, and how they care for one another, live on one another, and mimic others when they're afraid. There is also compelling insight into the naming process, which sea creatures are facing extinction, and how we can help them before it's too late.

'Packed with vibrant images of sea life large and small, scientist and photographer Smith's volume is a splendid and thorough look beneath the surface of the ocean.' Publishers Weekly

Reviews

Packed with vibrant images of sea life large and small, scientist and photographer Smith's volume is a splendid and thorough look beneath the surface of the ocean.
Publishers Weekly

Smith vividly documents the amazing diversity of marine life associated with coral reefs and eloquently argues for their protection.
Library Journal

This book by Dr. Richard Smith is a surprise-filled delight from start to finish.
DIVER magazine

I was completely on board with Dr. Richard Smiths gorgeous new book and his aim to engage and educate the reader . . . and Dr. Smith does not disappoint. . . . I would recommend it without hesitation.
The Linnean

A dazzling display of the deeps endangered denizens, from color-changing crustaceans to secretive sea dragons, and whale sharks to seahorses so small they are almost invisible.
The Lady, Books of the Year, 2020

Richard Smith [reveals] secrets of coral reefs and some of their smaller, less well-known inhabitants in this fascinating and accessible book.
X-Ray International Dive Magazine

I guarantee that once you have read this remarkable book, you will never again look at the reef in the same way again; your understanding of the workings of the reef, the total dependence of everything that exists upon everything else, will all suddenly fall into place.
British Society of Underwater Photographers

Author Bio

Dr. Richard Smith is a marine biologist and conservationist, an award-winning underwater photographer and videographer, an acclaimed public speaker, and the leader of diving expeditions around the world; hes been on more than thirty-five hundred dives since 1996. Dr. Smith has written hundreds of articles, published internationally with a primary focus on conservation, marine life, and travel. His photographs have been featured around the world, including on dozens of magazine covers and in exhibitions. In 2018, he identified a new species of pygmy seahorse, having first photographed it five years previously. The new species, Hippocampus japapigu, is the size of a grain of rice and from the temperate waters of Japan. Dr. Smith has a bachelors degree in Zoology, a masters degree in Marine Ecology and Evolution, and a PhD that he received for his pioneering research on pygmy seahorses; it was the first PhD ever awarded for the subject. Dr. Smith is a member of the IUCN Seahorse, Pipefish and Seadragon Specialist Group, and the world authority on these fishes, and the Global Pygmy Seahorse Expert for iSeahorse.org, which uses citizen science to further research and conservation. He lives in London, England.