Baikai is the deepest lake on earth and one of the most ancient. The
pronounced endemism and specific wealth of its fauna andflora has
attracted the keen interest of biologists and biogeographers all over
the world. A start on the Baikai studies was made more than 200 years
ago, but they have been carried on with the greatest intensity in the
last 30 to 40 years, and more than 1,000 scientific works devoted to it
have appeared in this period. Hence there is an urgent need for a
summary of the main results of more than 200 years' study of one of the
most remarkable lakes of our planet, and this the author has endeavoured
to provide. A zoologist and hydrobiologist hirnself, he has concentrated
on the living world of the lake. The author has for many years worked at
Baikai as head of the Biologo-Geographical Institute and the Baikai
Biological Station of Irkutsk University. In preparing this book for the
press the author has received invaluable assistance from cartographer
N.V. TYUMEN- TSEV, algologists N.L. ANTIPOVAandO. M. KOZHOVA,
hydrobiologists G. L. VASILYEVA, G. J. SHNYAGINA, L. J. PROTASOVA and R.
A.