ANNALES • Ser. hist. nat. • 12 • 2002 ■ 1
OCENE / RECENSIONI / REVIEWS, 11 2
OCENE
RECENSIONI
REVIEWS
Joan Barrul! and Isabel Mate: TIBURONES DEL 
MEDITERRÁNEO, Librería El Set-ciencies,
Arenys de Mar, 2002, 292 pp.
"Tiburones del Mediterráneo", published in 2002 by 
Librería El Set-ciencies, is one of the most com­
prehensive books on sharks of the Mediterranean Sea. 
The authors, Joan Barrull and Isabel Mate, both 
researchers at the Museum of Zoology in Barcelona, and 
active members of the Mediterranean Shark Research 
Group, are w idely recognized as shark authorities in this 
geographic area. They have been researching the shark 
species featured in the book for many years, writing 
several scientific reports and articles in magazines on 
different aspects of sharks' biology and ecology.
The 292 pages of the book include parts about 
anatomy, reproduction, feeding, fishery and trade, 
attacks on humans, a key to identification and full 
description of the 45 species found in the area. There is 
also a very interesting wide section dedicated to 
morphometric measurements with a great amount of
data collected in part by the authors and in part taken 
from other sources. The book ends with a glossary and 
an extensive bibliography.
The authors skilfully combine bibliographical 
references, data collected by themselves and good 
pictures. The book includes 125 photographs, mostly 
shot in Spanish waters (many in colours, a rarity for a 
book on sharks of this area), as well as 115 fine and 
precise drawings made by one of the authors, Isabel 
Mate, who is also a talented wildlife illustrator. All 
general graphics of the book, which came out in a 
practical 17x24 cm format, are well designed and the 
paper is of good quality.
The book has made the main results of the shark 
research conducted in the Mediterranean Sea available 
to a wide readership. It w ill satisfy both the general 
reader and the scientist working on this matter. This 
excellent work has rightly taken a place among the main 
guides written on the subject of the Mediterranean 
sharks, together with "Guía de los tiburones de aguas 
ibéricas, Atlántico Nororiental y  Mediterráneo" by J. A. 
Moreno and "Requins de Méditerranée et d'Atlantique" 
by J. Cadenat and J. Blache.
Alessandro De Maddalena