First, I must thank the scientists who are slowly uncovering the secrets of these deep-sea creatures. For without the steady procession of new discoveries, there would be no need for another journalistic expedition across the ocean expanses and to the deepest waters of our planet. In essence, we all need to thank the creatures themselves for inspiring such wonder and for turning up at a surprisingly steady rate year after year—2,000 new species per year since 2000.
In addition, I would especially like to thank two of my favorite editors, Tracy C. Read and copy editor Susan Dickinson, along with Lionel Koffler and Michael Worek at Firefly, for making this book possible. All were involved in the first edition of Creatures of the Deep, so there is a strong continuity. I would also like to thank Firefly’s Pippa Kennard for coordinating the photos and for facilitating every aspect of the book’s production, designer Hartley Millson, illustrator George A. Walker, indexer Gillian Watts and all the photographers, especially David Shale, for his unfailing help with background details on his deep-sea images, and Sandra Storch, who provided the background for Solvin Zankl’s photos. Erika Fitzpatrick provided enormous help with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution images. I owe my passion and some of my thinking on biodiversity, protected areas and whale conservation in the book’s final section to a number of friends and colleagues, including Tundi Agardy, Jeff Ardron, Regina Asmutis-Silvia, Brad Barr, Mike Bossley, Alexander Burdin, Chris Butler-Stroud, Sarah Dolman, Nicolas Entrup, Ivan Fedutin, Olga Filatova, Naoko Funahashi, Kristina Gjerde, Nicola Hodgins, Miguel Iñíguez, Tanya Ivkovich, Kristin Kaschner, David Mattila, Naomi McIntosh, Cara Miller, Mikhail Nagaylik, Peter Poole, Margi Prideaux, Patrick Ramage, Randall Reeves, Lorenzo Rojas Bracho, Mark Simmonds, Liz Slooten, Brian Smith, Michael Tetley, Vanesa Tossenberger, José Truda Palazzo Jr., Rob Williams, Vanessa Williams-Grey, Edward O. Wilson, Alison Wood and especially my fellow chair of the IUCN Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force, Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara. I would like to express my deepest appreciation to biological oceanographer Paul Snelgrove at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, who read the entire text and provided excellent suggestions and corrections. In addition, Charlie Huveneers provided valuable comments on the sections about sharks. Of course, any errors that remain are my own.