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Now you, too, can be a cephalopedant

You remember all those dinosaur books you read as a kid, page after page listing species, with illustrations? (Wait, you don’t? What was wrong with you?) Well, now you’ve got the same thing for cephalopods, and it’s all free. You can download two volumes in pdf form of a massive catalog of species, all for yourself. Put ’em on your iPad, and then you can read it under the covers in bed. Hey, I just realized…this generation may be the last to do the ol’ “smuggling books and a flashlight into bed to read past your bedtime” thing — tablets make the whole procedure so much easier.

Here are the two volumes; each is about 20Mb.

Jereb, P.; Roper, C.F.E. (eds) Cephalopods of the world. An annotated and illustrated catalogue of cephalopod species known to date. Volume 1.
Chambered nautiluses and sepioids (Nautilidae, Sepiidae, Sepiolidae, Sepiadariidae, Idiosepiidae and Spirulidae).
FAO Species Catalogue for Fishery Purposes. No. 4, Vol. 1. Rome, FAO. 2005. 262p. 9 colour plates.

This is the first volume of the entirely rewritten, revised and updated version of the original FAO Catalogue of Cephalopods of the World (1984). The present Volume is a multiauthored compilation that reviews six families: Nautilidae, Sepiidae, Sepiolidae, Sepiadariidae, Idiosepiidae and Spirulidae, with 23 genera and the 201 species known to the date of the completion of the volume. It provides accounts for all families and genera, as well as illustrated keys to all taxa. Information under each species account includes: valid modern systematic name and original citation of the species (or subspecies); main synonyms; English, French and Spanish FAO names for the species; illustrations of dorsal and ventral aspect of the whole animal (as necessary) and other distinguishing illustrations; field characteristics; diagnostic features; geographic and vertical distribution, including GIS map; size; habitat; biology; interest to fishery; local names when available; a remarks section (as necessary) and literature. The volume is fully indexed and also includes sections on terminology and measurements, an extensive glossary, an introduction with an updated review of the existing biological knowledge on cephalopods (including fisheries information and catch data for recent years) and a dedicated bibliography.

Jereb, P.; Roper, C.F.E. (eds) Cephalopods of the world. An annotated and illustrated catalogue of cephalopod species known to date. Volume 2.
Myopsid and Oegopsid Squids.
FAO Species Catalogue for Fishery Purposes. No. 4, Vol. 2. Rome, FAO. 2010. 605p. 10 colour plates.

This is the second volume of the entirely rewritten, revised and updated version of the original FAO Catalogue of Cephalopods of the World (1984). The present Volume is a multiauthored compilation that reviews 28 families, i.e. (in alphabetical order), Ancistrocheiridae, Architeuthidae, Australiteuthidae, Bathyteuthidae, Batoteuthidae, Brachioteuthidae, Chiroteuthidae, Chtenopterygidae, Cranchiidae, Cycloteuthidae, Enoploteuthidae, Gonatidae, Histioteuthidae, Joubiniteuthidae, Lepidoteuthidae, Loliginidae, Lycoteuthidae, Magnapinnidae, Mastigoteuthidae, Neoteuthidae, Octopoteuthidae, Ommastrephidae, Onychoteuthidae, Pholidoteuthidae, Promachoteuthidae, Psychroteuthidae, Pyroteuthidae and Thysanoteuthidae, with 83 genera and the 295 species known and named to the date of the completion of the volume. It provides accounts for all families and genera, as well as illustrated keys. Information under species accounts includes: valid modern systematic name and original citation of the species (or subspecies); synonyms; English, French and Spanish FAO names for the species; illustrations of dorsal and ventral aspects of the whole animal (as necessary) and other distinguishing illustrations; field characteristics; diagnostic features; geographic and vertical distribution, including GIS map; size; habitat; biology; interest to fishery; local names when available; a remarks section (as necessary) and literature. The Volume is fully indexed and also includes sections on terminology and measurements, an extensive glossary, an introduction with an updated review of the existing biological knowledge on squids (including fisheries information and main catch data for recent years) and a dedicated bibliography. Due to the conspicuous amount of literature addressing many squid species, an appendix is included in the online version, where those references considered most pertinent to the species are listed, by family and species, in alphabetical order by author; key words, also, are reported.

There. Now everybody should be happy.

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Comments

  5. gvlgeologist says

    I’m not interested unless these books include all of the beautiful ammonite, belemnoid, and fossil nautiloid species.

  6. komponist says

    As long as we’re going to be pedants, in Norwegian, “kraken” is the definite form of krake; “en” attached to the end is the definite article “the”. So “the kraken” means “the the krake”. I know that’s being really picky, but if we’re going to be cephalopedants . . .

  11. Draken says

    You remember all those dinosaur books you read as a kid, page after page listing species, with illustrations? (Wait, you don’t? What was wrong with you?)

    Bad timing. I don’t recall dinosaurs being particularly fashionable when I grew up in the seventies. That only really took off with the advent of Jurassic Park.

    Until then I’d hardly even heard of velociraptors.

  15. ogremeister says

    The day a squid can catch a mouse running around my garage is the day I’ll put out a bowl of milk for it.

  16. David Marjanović says

    Bad timing. I don’t recall dinosaurs being particularly fashionable when I grew up in the seventies. That only really took off with the advent of Jurassic Park.

    Grew up in the 80s, lots of lavishly illustrated dinosaur books.

    (Mostly outdated by decades, but never mind.)

  17. cameronmccormick says

    I know that’s being really picky, but if we’re going to be cephalopedants . . .

    To be even more pedantic (!) the term “kraken” was not originally applied to cephalopods, see Giant Squid are Red Herrings for a review.

  18. says

    What I had as a child (in the 1960’s) was the Golden Book Encyclopedia, with page after page of information on every topic imaginable, complete with photos and maps, all in glorious alphabetical order.
    Everyone thought I was really smart because I knew where Andorra was and shit.

  20. shouldbeworking says

    When I was young I too knew where Andorra and shitvwere. One is one the border between Spain and France, the othervwasin my little brother’s diaper.

  22. Stacy says

    What I had as a child (in the 1960′s) was the Golden Book Encyclopedia, with page after page of information on every topic imaginable, complete with photos and maps, all in glorious alphabetical order

    Oh, man, those were great. I credit Volume 7 (Ghosts to Houseplants) with providing the first seeds of my skepticism (their entry on “Ghosts” included rational explanations of sightings) and atheism (“Gods and goddesses,” my introduction to comparative religion/mythology.)

  23. johnscanlon says

    Not entirely happy, sounds like it’s missing most of the dimensions of reality.

    Nothing in biology really makes sense without maps, a timeline and a phylogeny.

    A cool start though, let’s hope vol 3’s the charm.

  24. Ava, Oporornis maledetta says

    The dino books were after my time. We too had a home encyclodpedia. As for under the covers with a flashlight, for me it was The Godfather by Mario Puzo. I was in eighth grade and my mother had nixed the book as too mature for me.