Preface 



T„ 



.HE oldest pictures of living invertebrates that have come down to us, from about 1500 

 B.C., are of the octopuses that Cretan artists painted on their beautiful vases, and of the 

 cockles and nautiluses that they worked into the designs of their frescoes and faiences. The 

 first book illustrations of animals were those of Aristotle, who made many diagrams to support 

 the descriptions of animal structure in his texts. The diagrams were lost long ago, but many of 

 them have been reconstructed from his references to them and from his excellent descriptions 

 in the Historia Animalium. Since Aristotle's day no better way has been devised for com- 

 municating details of anatomical structure or embryological development than the well- 

 designed drawing or diagram. 



No diagram, however, could have helped Aristotle to impart to his students the full attrac- 

 tion of the world of invertebrates that had kept him for much of two years on the island of 

 Lesbos. He became so enamored of the shore invertebrates that he passed day after day leaning 

 over the edge of a boat intent on what he could see in the still, clear, shallow, sunlit waters. 

 The graceful stances, the variety of behavioral postures, the delicate textures, the subtle and 

 rich colorings, and whatever it is that so completely fascinates those who see invertebrates at 

 first hand in their natural surroundings — all these are not easily communicated to others. 



After Aristotle, interest in marine invertebrates declined; scientific inquiry into animals was 

 first neglected and then actively discouraged. During the Middle Ages people of religious out- 

 look tended to look upward, and the birds were of primary interest. Then came the new age of 

 marine discovery; the sea was once more in fashion, and interest in fishes and in marine 

 invertebrates returned. From Renaissance to modern times, artists mobilized every skill to 

 depict living animals as they saw and enjoyed them. Wood engravings, steel engravings, and 

 color printing inevitably fell far short of the reality. Artistic effort in biological books declined 

 during the first half of this century, as artists found more lucrative outlets for their skills and as 

 book-production costs soared. Photographers seemed the natural successors to artists, but 

 technical limitations made tiiem train their heavy cameras on domestic animals or on the 

 same big-game mammals of Africa that were already known to us through the displays of zoos. 

 Not only were the smaller invertebrates more diflRcult to photograph because of their size and 

 timidity, but many of the most attractive ones li\ed below the surface of the sea or were 

 accessible to a camera only a few days in the year, when the lowest tides happened to coincide 

 with the sunniest mornings. 



More than two decades ago a few photographers rejected the methods of the wire-and-pin 

 school of nature photography with its long bellows extensions and fixed lighting equipment 

 used to photograph dead, propped-up insects. Armed with faster lenses and the newest flash- 

 bulbs, they went whenever possible into the field, turning up logs in the tropical rain forest and 

 following the tides out on dark, foggy mornings. The black-and-white photographs made by 

 this group were a vast improvement over earlier ones, and they revived an interest in inverte- 

 brates and in books on invertebrates. Then suddenly, in the last decade, there was a major ad- 

 vance in the photography of animals. Faster color films and newly portable electronic lighting 

 equipment have sent naturalist-photographers into the field in greater numbers than ever. The 

 aqualung has taken the skin-diving photographer to the ocean bed to bring back beautiful 

 images of one of the last unexplored "landscapes" on our planet. The aqualung has itself 

 brought the enchantment of marine invertebrates to many thousands in areas and at depths that 



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