Invertebrates (Hardcover)

About Richard C. Brusca Richard C. Brusca is a marine biologist, conservation ecologist, and Southwestern naturalist (see www.rickbrusca.com). He is also author of the fictional historical novel "In the Land of the Feathered Serpent" (see www.featheredserpent.online). Rick’s area of greatest research interest is the Sea of Cortez and the Sonoran Desert. He is Executive Director, Emeritus, of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and a Research Scientist at the University of Arizona. Rick is the author of over 200 research publications and 14 books, including the largest-selling text on invertebrate zoology (Invertebrates, Sinauer Associates; available in four languages) and the popular field guides Common Intertidal Invertebrates of the Gulf of California (UofA Press), A Seashore Guide to the Northern Gulf of California (ASDM Press), and A Natural History the Santa Catalina Mountains, with an Introduction to the Madrean Sky Islands (ASDM Press). His books have won many awards, including "Best Textbook of the Year," "Southwest Book of the Year," and the coveted Tabasco Best Southwest Cookbook Award (for a cookbook he developed, edited and produced for the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum). Rick has been the recipient of more than 100 research grants from the National Science Foundation, NOAA, National Geographic Society, Charles Lindberg Foundation, National Park Service, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and many other agencies and foundations. He has served on panels and boards for many foundations and agencies, including the National Science Board, National Science Foundation, Smithsonian Institution, NOAA, PEW Program in Conservation and the Environment, Public Broadcasting Service, IUCN Species Survival Commission, U.S. Department of the Interior, and others. He has served on more than a dozen non-profit boards and helped found four nonprofits. Although he has organized and conducted field expeditions throughout the world, in over 50 countries and on every continent, he has maintained his research programs in the Sonoran Desert and the Gulf of California for more than 40 years. He is an elected Fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Linnean Society of London (FLS), and the California Academy of Sciences. In the "Land of the Feathered Serpent" is a tale of one man’s journey of discovery and self-realization (the story pays homage to Homer’s epic work, "The Odyssey"). The hero of Feathered Serpent gets caught up in the turbulent years of the 1980s in Central America, during the era of Sandinistas, CONTRAS, heavy-handed CIA activity, and a Guatemalan government campaign of genocide against the indigenous Maya. Odel Bernini’s journey takes place both in the physical terrain and in the landscape of his mind as he travels through the lowland jungles of the Petén rainforest and the 10,000-foot high sierras of Guatemala’s Maya realm. Bernini gets caught up with dirty politics and the CIA, is seduced by a dark siren, is nearly killed by a Cyclops, and is swept into the world of Maya mysticism. In the end, the scientist finds himself transformed in unexpected ways. See www.featheredserpent.online for more information.