The Holy Grail...

BonsaiNut

Premium Member
After looking for five years, I finally obtained a copy. Rarer than a first edition Lord of the Rings...

functional1.jpg
 
I just got it, LOL! I had to upload an image into Amazon since they didn't have one :) The author doesn't even have a copy :)

Just about every scientific paper on anemones that I have read in the last decade references this book. I have never seen a copy before today.
 
The first couple of sentences of the Foreword:

The main aim of this series will be to illustrate and to explain the way organisms "make a living" in nature. At the heart of this - their functional biology - is the way organisms acquire and then make use of resources in metabolism, movement, growth, reproduction, and so on.

It is the anemone lover's bible. There is no other work like it in existence.
 
Nice score. Did you get it local or online?

I got it online. I've been looking for used copies, but they are very expensive and some of them are in poor shape.

I'm working through the first chapter and have to stop and look up a lot of the references and terms as I go. Though it is a scientific text, I think the manner in which some complicated subjects are presented makes them easy to understand. For example they talk about the simplicity of the biological structure of anemones in an interesting way. Anemones don't have organs with specialized sets of cells. Rather, the entire structure of an anemone is made up of laminar sheets of cells with different sheets having different functions. They describe it as an "origami" creature - which I thought was both funny and descriptive :)

More info to come I guess :) Right now I am reading.
 
i want you to re-type word for word, the book now... !
so i too can read it...

haha but seriously sweet find =]
 
The reference section in the back is almost 50 pages long. Probably lists every major paper on anemones at the time the book was published (1991).

I'm only about 10 pages into the book and have already had half a dozen "aha" moments. Stuff like I never knew how anemones breathed...
 
AWESOME find. That's my equivalent to Veron's Corals in Space and Time, though I think yours was more difficult to attain. ;)

Happy reading.

Cheers
Mike
 
Randy - I've been hoping to answer your question about how anemones grow. I'm getting closer with the information in this book. One of my "aha" moments is that ALL anemones have bi-radial symmetry. Left and right sides are mirror images, as are top and bottom. The directive axis can be determined by lining up the siphonoglyphs at the edges of the mouth - they are at the top and bottom of the directive axis.

Because of this symmetry, all four quadrants of an anemone match (mirror image across the two axes), and growth must be balanced across all four quadrants. Tentacles occupy the space between internal mesenteries - therefore (and this is the question you asked earlier) it appears that an anemone grows tentacles radially in four rows at a time - one row in each quadrant. I can't say whether they show up first at the edge of the oral disk, the center, randomly, or all at once (and perhaps this timing differs based on species and environment). The important thing is that an entire row is one unit - tentacles don't just grow randomly.
 
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A book like that, with such important information and which is so hard to find, should really be digitized.

+1 for spending a week with a camera and making a PDF version.
 
I have a scanner and the pdf making software -- send it on over. Seriously, good information on growth and breathing -- give us more !
 
great find! its like when i was looking for the breeding clownfish book by Dr. Wilkerson. cheapest i could find was over $60! but i found it used on amazon for $35. till alot but worth every penny.
 
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