Monarchs of the Sea: The Extraordinary 500-Million-Year History of Cephalopods

A delightfully nerdy expression of the author’s love of cephalopods both ancient and modern, but mostly ancient. With funny asides referencing Douglas Adams, Monty Python and other geeky humor, she not only gives an overview of each age of the cephalopod, but also current views and how science is changing the picture of creatures that hardly leave any evidence behind. Good illustrations and photos throughout. From ammonoids (named for an ancient god) to nautiloids, squids, cuttlefish & octopuses (and she corrects the correction of our plural form right off the bat), the history and near extinctions of cephalopods is interesting and a triumph of evolution.

And speaking of evolution, I love the idea that squid lost their shells as a show more possible reaction to whales’ developing sonar. Because squid mostly dwell deep in open oceans and early whale hunting was dependent on eyesight, whales just flat couldn’t see their prey. Just how echolocation came to be isn’t greatly explored, but it’s a neat idea that because it could easily detect hard surfaces like cephalopod shells, losing those shells as quickly as possible was pretty important. Why else lose such an effective defense mechanism? show less

* I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review this book. *

This is an excellent popular science book written by a marine biologist with an evident passion for her subject. I was attracted to the subject matter due to my enthusiasm for marine creatures, but I knew little about cephalapods. Staaf provides a wealth of information and plenty of revelations, spanning a vast fossil record as well as current science about the cephalapods of today. While she clearly has strong academic credentials, she discusses her subject matter at a level that lay people can understand, and this is assisted by a series of excellent illustrations.