Elentarri's Book Blog

TITLE:  Squid Empire:  The Rise and Fall of the Cephalopods

AUTHOR:  Danna Staaf

DATE PUBLISHED:  2017

FORMAT:  Hardcover

ISBN-13:  978-1-61168-923-5

___________________________

Squid Empire: The Rise and Fall of the Cephalopods is a book that does exactly as "described on the tin". This is the fascinating tale of the evolutionary rise and fall (and possible rise again) of Cephalopods - everything from ammonites, nautiloids, squid, octopuses, cuttlefish and the other odd prehistoric creatures that get lumped in the "head-foot" category. 

The author takes an evolutionary approach starting off with the first Cephalopods in the Cambrian, and ties in several threads of anatomy, biology, ecology and other aspects of marine life. She covers such topics are the swimming revolution, the invention of jet propulsion, shell development and abandonment, their co-evolution with fish, development of ink, paleontology, intelligence, how they deal with extinction events, how they deal with the current anthropocentric age, the ecology of these "swimming protein bars", and why modern squid don't fossilize. 

Danna Staaf has a lovely, clear writing style that is fun, while at the same time maintaining the science of the topic. She also includes numerous helpful diagrams, illustrations and photographs.

This is a superbly written, entertaining and informative book about the evolution of certain mobile, tentacled, squishy creatures that live in the ocean.

Other books on Cephalopods include:

~Kraken: The Curious, Exciting, and Slightly Disturbing Science of Squid by Wendy Williams

~Octopus: The Ocean's Intelligent Invertebrate by Jennifer A. Mather, Roland C. Anderson, James B. Wood

___________________________________

"But without the shell they were vulnerable, so a new defensive tool arose: ink. Never seen in nautiloids or ammonoids, ink is often preserved in coleoid fossils, thanks to the stability of the pigment melanin. In some cases, the ink has been so well preserved that it could be reconstituted and used to illustrate the animal itself."

 

"However, unquestionably the cephalopod with the most frightening name is Vampyroteuthis infernalis, which means “vampire squid from hell.” he animal’s appearance is also quite spooky.  Its skin is a constant deep red —like many other deep-sea cephalopods, the vampire squid has mostly abandoned its color-changing abilities as useless in this dark environment.  Red is just as good as black if you want to hide in the deep sea, since red light is absorbed most readily by water and is virtually absent below a few meters. And then, vampire squid have blue eyes. You might think these “baby blues” would offset the hellish red, but consider this:  the eyes are completely blue —there’s a pupil, but you can’t see it.  Now add to this the fact that one of the animal’s habits is to turn itself partially inside out, wrapping its arms and the webbing between them around its body.  The underside of the arms bear rows of sharp-looking tendrils. [...] So: it’s a red squid with vacant blue eyes that encases itself in apparent spines.  We can have some sympathy for the scientists who named it."