Nordic sharks

"Sharks of the Icy North" is a stunning documentary made by Christina Karliczek Skoglund, who I assume is Swedish. The documentary itself is German, however. It follows Karliczek herself as she dives at various locations off Scandinavia, Germany and Greenland, searching for the shark species typical of these waters. The footage is superb, and some of the sharks shown are fascinating. 

There´s the almost brilliantly bizarre basking shark (the world´s second-largest fish), the Greenland shark (which is said to become over 300 years old) and the self-luminescent "Velvet belly lanternshark" (what a name). If you´re a die hard sharkie nerd, I suppose you might also fancy Karliczek´s moving pictures of the small-spotted catshark, the school shark, the spiny dogfish and the rabbit fish, the latter being a distant evolutionary cousins to the sharks. Personally, I was also intrigued by Helgoland! Do people actually *live* at that weird place? 

My knowledge of cartilaginous fish clearly needs some honing, since I assumed that the velvet belly was much larger (actually, it´s only 25 centimeters long) and the Greenland shark much smaller. Like all living creatures, sharks are threatened by climate change, but so far, they can roam wild and free in the silent expanses of the Northern seas... 

Absolutely recommended. 

What is a cartilaginous fish?

Nationalnyckeln (NN) is an encyclopedia dealing with various groups of animals and plants found in the Nordic countries, principally Sweden. NN is a work in progress, and currently 17 volumes have been published. Originally, NN was supposed to become a mammoth work covering all (!) species of organisms found in Sweden, but it's not clear at the present time whether this goal will ever be reached.

This volume, codenamed DZ 1-34, was intended as the first one covering chordates (including vertebrates), and it therefore contains an extensive introduction to this group of creatures. This explains the otherwise curious presence of dinosaurs and other seemingly irrelevant animals in a book supposedly about fish!

Yes, fish. “What *is* a fish” wonders NN at its homepage, and after leafing through this volume, I can only concur with the questioner. Some of the creatures included are positively disgusting, such as the lampreys and the hagfish. Others are spectacular: the blue shark, the Greenland shark and the basking shark are among those. The volume also describes tunicates, which despite their anomalous looks are evolutionarily closer to fish than to invertebrates. For those interested in such things, here follows an exact breakdown of the contents: lancelets (1 species), tunicates (53 species), hagfish (1 species), lampreys (3 species), cartilaginous fishes (29 species).

Yes, it's in color. And no, it's not really bilingual, the only English texts being in the identification keys and very short species summaries. Still, deserves five stars.

Please fry them next time

Stanislav Frank's “Pictorial Encyclopedia of Fishes” is based on the same concept as the similar books on birds or insects, reviewed by me elsewhere. Little text, many photos, but most of them in black and white only. Personally, I don't think this volume is as stunning as the two others, perhaps because most of the fish seem to be photographed in aquariums (or in caught condition on the shore). But then, I'm not very interested in fish anyway. Except in fried condition, ha ha.

A fishy book

"Fiskarna i färg" is a Swedish book, first published in 1953. For reasons best known to themselves, Amazon actually carries the 1961 edition. My copy is from 1975. The book is part of a whole series of (probably worthless) field guides found in most public libraries in Sweden when I grew up. In fact, the "Färgserien" series may have been the first book on wild animals and nature I've leafed through as a kid. Ah, this product really brings back some memories!

This volume, written by Kai Curry-Lindahl, deals with the fish of the Nordic countries. Both Agnatha, Chondrichthyes and Osteichthyes are covered. Or jawless, cartilaginous and bony fishes, if you're Latin is a bit rusty.

The book looks really old fashioned, with rather rough colour plates separated from the main text, which is super-serious and surprisingly detailed. There are even (Swedish?) pronunciation guides to the Latin names! Another annoying anachronism is that not all species are illustrated. The colour plates are adequate, but not much more - but then, Swedes who grew up during the 1970's and 1980's were spoiled by Lars Jonsson's and Bo Mossberg's superbly illustrated and almost artful nature books. Compare to these, Henning Anthon's illustrations look like the work of an amateur.

Since "Fiskarna i färg" is in Swedish, I'm not sure who would want to buy the last copy, but Amazon sells everything...and I review (almost) everything.