Tadpoles

"""Here, at last, is a specialist publication, written by a team of fourteen international experts, that both provides a review of basic information, and indicates directions requiring further attention. The book radiates the humor and easy-going nature of the editors, while remaining an accurate scientific publication. It is divided into twelve chapters, a useful glossary, 69 pages of literature cited, and indices of authors, subjects, and taxonomy. Each chapter is complete and could serve as a core text in a course on amphibian larvae, and will no doubt become required reading for these and related vertebrate biology courses.""-- ""Herpetological Review"" ""The book comprises twelve chapters by forteen authors, plus a glossary, an extensive bibliography (70 pages!), and three indices (author, subject, and taxonomic). Contents are organized topically: an introductory chapter by the editors is followed by one or more treatments of ""standard"" topics (morphology, neurobiology, physiology, behavior, and ecology), plus two chapters that address the origin, evolution, and maintenance of the anuran larva (and of the complex life history in general) as well as its loss through direct development and related reproductive modes. The final chapter, also by the editors, provides a detailed compendium of tadpole diversity (mostly anatomical, but also ecological) at the levels of families and genera. Several chapters provide valuable and significant contributions, either by compiling and summarizing existing information from very diverse literature (both classical and recent), or by offering novel syntheses and highlighting important problems deserving of further study.""-- ""Evolution & Development"" ""Tadpoles is a great compilation of what we have learned about anuran larvae in the twentieth century.""-- ""Copeia"" ""I have nothing but praise for Tadpoles. . . . The accounts are engaging and the presentation is effective. Whether the book is read in an orderly manner or dipped into at random (I confess to a fair bit of the latter), there is much to discover between its covers.""-- ""Canadian Field-Naturalist"""