Located where the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean Sea converge, the Florida Keys are distinctive for their rich and varied marine fauna. The Keys are home to nearly sixty taxonomic families of bivalves such as clams and mussels - roughly half the world's bivalve family diversity. This volume provides a treatment of these bivalves.
"A tremendous resource for zoologists, ecologists, and any researchers in tropical marine systems. This book describes and illustrates in great detail the incredibly diverse bivalve mollusk fauna of the Florida Keys. The lushness of the color illustrations and photographs will encourage even reticent readers to delve deeper into the text. This work is significant and important."--Paul Valentich-Scott, coauthor of "Bivalve Seashells of Western North America"
"This book provides the most thorough treatment of living mollusks in this region ever written. It provides anatomical details of many species for which the anatomy had not been described previously. In addition to serving as an identification guide, it focuses on mollusks as living organisms, providing more biological information than previous faunal guides for western Atlantic marine mollusks."--Gary Rosenberg, Academy of Natural Sciences
"All marine bivalve enthusiasts should purchase this book, regardless of their home port. The anatomical drawings, illustrated glossary and good photographs will be useful worldwide. In addition, I would strongly recommend this book to all malacologists and shell collectors. It just might entice them to take the plunge into the exciting, if not tumultuous, world of bivalve taxonomy."
---Paul Valentich-Scott, The Festivus