Nudibranchs & Sea Snails Indo Pacific Field Guide
Helmut Debelius

321 pages. Hard back.
First published 1996.

Bright & colourful is the first impression of this book. The guide covers the gastropods of the Indo-Pacific & is rich in colour & interesting details. A lot of work has gone into this publication (as it does in all books) & only real weakness is the inaccurate naming of species. Keeping this in mind it is a great publication especially if you want to be able to explain to friends of colleges why you would be interested in "snails".

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This Review is by Wayne Ellis

Authorship details
Ellis, W., 1998 (December 15) Nudibranchs & Sea Snails Indo Pacific Field Guide. Helmut Debelius. [In] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/brdebe1

Related messages


Debelius' Book

November 19, 1999
From: Rainer Mau

I do not share the enthusiasm of others.

This book certainly is an improvement over previous books (Fish field guides) by the same author, which do contain grave errors.

The quality of the fotographs provided is now acceptable.

But I still believe that the genre:
"nudibranch and fish identification books"
should really be left with the experts......
and even they struggle!

Could you please include my details in the Participants List.

Kind regards
Rainer Mau

rainer.mau@hanse-net.de

Mau, R., 1999 (Nov 19) Debelius' Book. [Message in] Sea Slug Forum. Australian Museum, Sydney. Available from http://www.seaslugforum.net/find/1544

Dear Rainer,
I have included your details in the List. I am glad to receive book reviews and comments about books as I would prefer them to come from the 'users' who can tell us what they like and don't like about them.

If you have any specific comments of the Debelius book they would be useful. Most of these general photo books have identification problems and all users should be aware that just because an identification is in print it does not mean it is valid. I find these books useful because they always include a few interesting photos. One major complaint I have with the Debelius Book is that there are no references to any of the names or the statements he makes throughout it. When he says things like "Until 1994 H. mouaci was known as H. maradadilus", I would like to know on what authority he has reached that conclusion.

Best wishes,
Bill Rudman.