Invertebrate Zoology: A Functional Evolutionary Approach 7th Edition

This book tells me the most recent infomation in invertebrate zoology which I've been studying and teaching for years. SAometimes I update my knowledge by online searches but this covers all the basics in a solid way - which I can then teach to my students

I recently purchased the latest edition and have been studying it pretty closely. Its one of the best biology texts I have, good for building a foundation in understanding the structure and function of invertebrate taxa. It is not very heavy on the ecology, but even though I am an ecology grad student I don't really mind. It is more helpful for me to feel like I grasp the basics of what an organism is, before moving on to an explicit focus of how an organism functions in an ecosystem. I own the seventh edition, and from what I read in the introduction, it is a significant revision from the sixth. The classification system has been updated and 5 additional chapters that I am very fond of have been added. These chapters focus on the conceptual significance of thematic changes in organism design - there is a chapter on the eukaryotic cell, on multicellularity, or the eumetazoa and the development muscles and nerves, on bilatera, and one other that I haven't gotten too. The chapter on protozoa (though limited in scope) did quite a lot to impress me that the strange animals like sponges and coral at the base of animal phylogeny are not at all strange when viewed in the context of their protist predecessors.One thing that bothered me at first about the book was that its all in black and white. Many invertebrates are really spectacular to look at, so my heart was a little heavy when I first flipped through the pages. I suppose this saves them money and makes the book more affordable, but the excellent line diagrams are probably more helpful in learning tissue and organ anatomy, so I've forgiven them. The diagrams are worth half the value of the book - you really need to see the structures you are reading about to understand them.In short, its a great book, and I recommend it for the more hardnosed, curious type of student and enthusiast.

Sometimes a bit outdated for what we were learning in our class (the 7th edition is from 2003), but the diagrams were always super helpful to understand the basic models of the organisms. Good explanations and discussions of the anatomy and I enjoyed how the book set up the sections. My biggest issue was the black and white pictures, which were difficult to understand in some cases, but using this as a supplemental guide to the information we were learning along with the internet for photos of the invertebrates bridged the gap the black and white photos create in the book.

One of my fave college classes used this text. I stupidly gave it away upon graduation so was very pleased to find this updated version in good shape at a reasonable price.

I was very happy to see the complete brake down of each subject covered in the textbook.

I bought this book for class initially, but I am keeping it because it comes in handy when looking up facts about different inverts. This is a very detailed, but simple book, so it is excellent as an introductory source.

For anybody that needs an exhaustive review of the many different phyla, classes, and orders of the invertebrate world this is the text book for you. I got this for a course and I must say that while it is jam-packed with excellent information, diagrams, and tables it is without a doubt the driest text book I've come across. When you sit down to read a text book you can usually expect a certain amount of clinical sterility to the writing but this book takes the cake.Still would recommend it for anyone who wants to know everything about invertebrates.

So I bought the book used because it was only recommended for my class. It's good quality and arrived in a timely fashion but I received a version that is only for sale in subcontinental India, which was not mentioned anywhere when purchasing. This isn't really going to affect the content of the book, it just means I can't sell it to any of my local book stores when I am done.