PlanetCatfish.com

Catfish Soft Anatomy

C.B.L. Srivastava. New Delhi, Kitab Mahal, 2005, vi, 194 p., ISBN 81-225-0380-2.

Contents: Preface. 1. Introduction. 2. Barbels. 3. Club cells. 4. Pineal complex. 5. Carotid labyrinth. 6. Pseudobranchial neurosecretory system. 7. Surfacing activity. 8. Visual system. 9. Non-visual sensory system. 10. Lateral line system. 11. Other structures. 12. Concluding remarks. Index.

"Catfishes currently are the most sought after group of fishes by researchers drawn from very diverse areas, conventional ones like systematics, palaeontology, zoogeography, anatomy and biology, ecology, behaviour, genetics, gastronomy, fisheries and aquaculture as well as modern R&D like plasma chemistry, cloning, immunocytochemistry and the like.

No instigation on catfish is rewarding, be it any area of research, unless their life style and adaptation capabilities are well understood. Understanding the biological significance of the catfish soft anatomy will go a long way in helping us towards this. Unfortunately, catfish soft anatomy remained neglected until recently at the hands of the hard part anatomy (skeletal structures)--the favoured subject of the systematists/taxonomists and palaeontologists. The present review attempts to fulfill this lacuna by unravelling the great wealth of information which remained scattered in the literature, in one place.

It is hoped that researchers working the world over on any aspect of catfish will find this updated presentation on catfish soft anatomy a useful resource material in their respective field of interest."

More at

https://www.vedamsbooks.com/no42393.htm

Hi,
I´ve received this book today from India - and:
I´m very disappointed.
This book is bad, ... bad, bad, bad.
Bad condition ("dirty", with small damages, lookes used - as all of the four books I´ve ordered and received today).
Vera bad quality of paper, worst binding (first time opening - binding broken), very bad print, very bad quality of the graphics, no photos, big letters and so only small content, ...
And, most disappointing of all:
the information given in this book is little, bad, partly false, ridiculously false (e.g. in the chapter about hearing).

The citations are partly false, wrong spelling of authors, ...
The author seems to give (very) short abstracts of the papers he cites (and it seems, that he even has not read all these works - otherwise he would not give such false information). And the citations make a big part of each chapter of the book (maybe 20 - 30 %).

Many of my old books with more than 20 years of age are in a better physical condition than the four books I´ve received today from India.
And, aditionally, you have to pay duty and fees for the post, if you receive the books from the postman - so they are not that cheap as it seems first (no hint on the webpage - seems, as it is on Amazon, you have paid shipping, no word of duty etc., but that´s the minor problem).

It was a "test buy" for me - cause they have so many ichthyological and biological books in India (bought at http://www.bagchee.com) - but I´ll never order again.

BTW: Many actual books are printed in India, e.g. "Catfishes", but their quality is much better (and their price much higher...).

One could live with the incredibly bad quality of print and paper, if the qualitiy of information would be ok.
But unluckily that´s not the fact.

So: dont order, it´s even not worth the 18 US $.