From the author of Nursery Earth, a “nimble, fast, surprising, smart, and weird in the very coolest sense of the word” (Sy Montgomery) exploration of the sometimes enormous, often bizarre creatures that ruled the seas long before the first dinosaurs—a Science Friday Book Club PickCephalopods, Earth’s first truly substantial animals, are still among us: Their fascinating family tree features squid, octopuses, nautiluses, and more. The inventors of swimming,...

A first-of-its-kind pop-science journey into the hidden world of baby animalsEntire ecosystems rest on the shoulders (or tentacles, or jointed exoskeletons) of animal babies; it’s time we paid them more attention. In Nursery Earth, researcher Danna Staaf invites readers to explore these tiny, secret lives, revealing some of nature’s strangest and most ingenious workings. A salamander embryo breathes with the help of algae inside its cells. The young grub o...

An engaging and beautifully illustrated introduction to some of the world’s most interesting and charismatic marine creaturesDive deep into the fascinating world of cephalopods—octopuses, squid, cuttlefish, and the mysterious nautilus—to discover the astonishing diversity of this unique group of intelligent invertebrates and their many roles in the marine ecosystem. Organized by marine habitat, this book features an extraordinary range of these clever and colorful ...

Born in a small village in eighteenth-century France, Jeanne Villepreux wasn’t expected to transform marine science.Curious, creative, and clever, Jeanne ventured to Paris by foot as a teenager. After achieving acclaim as a seamstress, she met a wealthy merchant and traveled with him to Sicily, where they married. Rather than settling into a life of domesticity on this beautiful island, she set out to investigate its natural wonders, from fossils and insects on lan...

Before there were mammals on land, there were dinosaurs. And before there were fish in the sea, there were cephalopods—the ancestors of modern squid and Earth's first truly substantial animals. Cephalopods became the first creatures to rise from the seafloor, essentially inventing the act of swimming. With dozens of tentacles and formidable shells, they presided over an undersea empire for millions of years. But when fish evolved jaws, the ocean's former top predator became its most delici...

"Jeanne Villepreux-Power was never expected to be a scientist. Born in 1794 in a French village more than 100 miles from the ocean, she pursued an improbable path that brought her to the island of Sicily. There, she took up natural history and solved the two-thousand-year-old mystery of how the argonaut octopus gets its shell. In an era when most research focused on dead specimens, Jeanne was determined to experiment on living animals. And to keep sea creatures alive for her studies, she h...

It’s time to pay attention to baby animals. From egg to tadpole, chick to fledgling, they offer scientists a window into questions of immense importance: how do genes influence health? Which environmental factors support – or obstruct – life? Entire ecosystems rest on the shoulders (or tentacles, or jointed exoskeletons) of animal babies. At any given moment, babies represent the majority of animal life on Earth. In Nursery Earth, researcher Danna Staaf invites listeners into the sibling (...

A first-of-its-kind pop-science journey into the hidden world of baby animalsEntire ecosystems rest on the shoulders (or tentacles, or jointed exoskeletons) of animal babies; it's time we paid them more attention. In Nursery Earth, researcher Danna Staaf invites readers to explore these tiny, secret lives, revealing some of nature's strangest and most ingenious workings. A salamander embryo breathes with the help of algae inside its cells. The young grub o...

From the author of Nursery Earth, a "nimble, fast, surprising, smart, and weird in the very coolest sense of the word" (Sy Montgomery) exploration of the sometimes enormous, often bizarre creatures that ruled the seas long before the first dinosaurs—a Science Friday Book Club PickCephalopods, Earth's first truly substantial animals, are still among us: Their fascinating family tree features squid, octopuses, nautiluses, and more. The inventors of swimming,...