About OarFeet.com
Attention is called to a book of interest to invertebrate zoologists, biology teachers, and at least some general readers. It is Oar Feet and Opal Teeth, About Copepods and Copepodolgists. It was written by Charlie Miller. Find a little about him at the “About Charlie” tab above. The book was released by Oxford University Press in June 2023, but it has never been widely advertised. In addition to the description immediately below, the site will offer occasional short essays of interest to biologists, most but not all about copepods. Click on “My Essays” above.
Oar Feet and Opal Teeth is about free-living copepods and the copepodologists who study them. Copepods are a subclass of the arthropod class Crustacea. They act as dominant herbivores and small predators in the planktonic ecosystems of oceans, estuaries, and lakes. Copepods are one of the largest assemblages of complex animals on earth. These strikingly beautiful small crustaceans are of wide ecological significance and as complex and precisely adapted as insects. Yet few biologists and others interested in animals are familiar with them. Oar Feet and Opal Teeth introduces copepods and some of the scientists devoting their careers to their biology.
Cover photo by Russ Hopcroft, Univ. Alaska, Fairbanks Published by Oxford University Press in 2023.
In twenty-one chapters, I detailed the defining features and general biology of copepods. They typically have four or five pairs of oar-like feet to drive escape jumps. Teeth on their mandible extensions are formed with siliceous minerals akin to opal. The first two chapters of the book closely examine the oar feet and mouth parts. Subsequent chapters describe internal anatomy, taxonomy, and many aspects of copepod natural history. Last, recent evolutionary insights about them are reviewed. Those reach back to the Cambrian explosion. The new insights are based on both anatomical characters and molecular genetics.
Oar Feet and Opal Teeth includes over twenty biographical sketches of copepodologists from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Among them, Russell Hopcroft, a premier photographer of plankton, captured many of the full-color copepod images featured on the cover shown here and throughout the book. There is an extensive index. A review is at https://academic.oup.com/plankt/advance-article/doi/10.1093/plankt/fbae040/7727886?searchresult=1
Available from Oxford University Press sales offices (in the US at +1 800-451-7556; or online at
https://global.oup.com/academic [search biology under author]), and at Amazon and other online book sellers. Orders can be placed at Indie Bookstores and elsewhere.
Click on one of the buttons below to purchase a copy of "Oar Feet"
Oar Feet and Opal Teeth
