Anderson, D.T. (Ed):Invertebrate Zoology, 2nd edn. Oxford University Press, Victoria, 2001, 476pp, paper cover. £27.99. ISBN 0 19551368 1.

This publication – rather massive for an undergraduate textbook, in both size and scope – comes from down under: the editor and author of several chapters, the embryologist D.T. Anderson, and 10 of the other 13 authors all live in Australia. It may be for this reason that, even more than is customary in English-language zoology textbooks, European views and theories of the patterns in metazoan phylogeny are given little space or completely ignored. The most striking innovation in this second edition of the book first published in 1997 is the inclusion of the Ecdysozoa hypothesis, which proposes a close kinship between sections of the Nemathelminthes and the Arthropoda. In contrast, the Lophotrochozoa concept is only mentioned in passing. The taxon Gnathifera, one of the most important recent results of phylogenetic research, is neglected altogether, as is the close kinship between Rotatoria and Acanthocephala (Syndermata). Although on the whole a relatively large amount of text is devoted to phylogeny, including a separate chapter ‘Metazoa Phylogeny’ by R.A. Raff at the end of the book, the relationships are rarely presented in the context of the arguments that support them; mostly they simply form part of a narrative which therefore must be hard for the student reader to follow logically or really understand. Furthermore, for none of the diagrams of phylogenetic trees are the reasons for the structure given, and the way some of these (graphically quite disparate) trees are presented is simply out of the question, even for an undergraduate textbook. The figures are rarely reproductions of the originals published elsewhere; instead, most have been redrawn, some merely as sketches reminiscent of the drawings made by students in undergraduate morphology courses, and in many cases they are unclear, imprecise or sometimes with no didactic value at all. Particularly blatant examples are the illustrations of a terminal cell in a plathyhelminth protonephridium (Fig. 4.5a), of gastrotrichs and rotifers (Fig. 5.1), and of the water-vascular system of a starfish (Fig. 16.8). The selection of objects to be illustrated also leaves many questions open. For instance, there are about 11 detailed histological drawings of the gut epithelium of a brachiopod species, occupying an entire page, whereas no drawings at all are provided to clarify the relationships within the body cavities of the echinoderms, which – as we all know – cannot be understood without good graphics. Only few chapters present a few black-and-white photos, many poorly printed; adequately explanatory legends are often lacking and quite a few, especially SEM images (e.g. 2.4, 15.6), are not sufficiently informative. The text is understandably written and easily readable throughout; regarding its visual appearance, the text, however, could have been better subdivided.

This ‘Invertebrate Zoology’ thus certainly is not one of those zoology textbooks written in English – for instance, those of Brusca & Brusca or Ruppert & Barnes – that the non-native English zoology lecturer will look through with pleasure and interest, beneficially extracting and putting to use the occasional item of information or new idea, or one that can confidently be recommended to students as a supplementary textbook in a foreign language.