In deep retrospect, I pay homage to my parents, Don and Mary, with belated apologies for all the trouble I caused. Also to Noni and to Jinka for playing such a big part in my life before my present family took over.
ABOUT THE THE AUTHOR
Charlie Veron was born in Sydney and now lives near Townsville. He has three higher degrees in different fields of science and was the first full-time researcher on the Great Barrier Reef. He was the first scientist to be employed by the Australian Institute of Marine Science, becoming Chief Scientist of that organisation in 1997. He has over a hundred publications on all aspects of corals, from palaeontology, taxonomy and biogeography to physiology and molecular science, and has published widely on other subjects, notably evolution and mass extinctions. He has also established a major website at coralsoftheworld.org. His many awards include the Darwin Medal, the Australian Marine Sciences Association Jubilee Pin, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Academy of Underwater Science. His work has underpinned most major reef conservation initiatives over the past two decades, inside the Coral Triangle and beyond. Charlie has been diving since the age of eighteen, logging six thousand hours underwater, and has participated in sixty-seven expeditions to most of the world’s key reef regions.
ALSO BY CHARLIE VERON
(AS J.E.N. VERON)
Scleractinia of Eastern Australia
(five volumes with multiple co-authors)
Corals of Australia and the Indo-Pacific
A Biogeographic Database of Hermatypic Corals
Hermatypic Corals of Japan
(monograph)
Hermatypic Corals of Japan
(book, with Moritaka Nishihira, in Japanese)
Corals in Space and Time: The Biogeography and Evolution of the Scleractinia
Inge
Corals of the World
(book in three volumes)
Coral ID
(with Mary Stafford-Smith, CD-ROM)
A Reef in Time: The Great Barrier Reef from Beginning to End
Corals of the World
(website with three co-authors)
VIKING
UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia
India | New Zealand | South Africa | China
Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies
whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
First published by Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd, 2017
Text copyright © John Veron 2017
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Cover design by Alex Ross © Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd
Cover photographs by Tristan Bayer, Charlie Veron and Stoneography/Getty Images
penguin.com.au
ISBN: 978-1-76014-363-3
THE BEGINNING
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A Life Underwater Page 31