Squid Empire, Danna Staaf
Squid Empire, Danna Staaf
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Squid Empire
The Rise and Fall of the Cephalopods

Author: Danna Staaf

Narrator: Emily Durante

Unabridged: 7 hr 18 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 04/17/2018

Synopsis

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 delicious snack. Cephalopods had to step up their game.

Many species streamlined their shells and added defensive spines, but these enhancements only provided a brief advantage. Some cephalopods then abandoned the shell entirely, which opened the gates to a flood of evolutionary innovations: masterful camouflage, fin-supplemented jet propulsion, perhaps even dolphin-like intelligence.

Squid Empire is an epic adventure spanning hundreds of millions of years, from the marine life of the primordial ocean to the calamari on tonight's menu. Anyone who enjoys the undersea world—along with all those obsessed with things prehistoric—will be interested in the sometimes enormous, often bizarre creatures that ruled the seas long before the first dinosaurs.

Contains mature themes.

About Danna Staaf

Danna Staaf is a freelance science communicator with a Ph.D. in marine biology. Her writing has appeared in Science, KQED, Earther, and io9, and her first book, Squid Empire: The Rise and Fall of the Cephalopods, was named one of the best science books of 2017 by NPR. She created the science outreach program Squids4Kids and visits schools at every grade level, as well as museums, libraries, and tech companies. She lives in San Jose with her spouse, children, and innumerable plush octopuses.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jennifer on March 21, 2018

Reading Squid Empire is like having a nerdily awesome scientist friend who’s willing to comb through 100+ years of research papers for you and distill them into a pithy, entertaining, and cohesive narrative. Evolution’s the game; we have our cast of three cephalopod lineages (ammonoids, coleoids, an......more

Goodreads review by Trish on March 28, 2020

From fossils like amenoids to today's stars of animated movies like Finding Dory, cephalopods are rock stars. For the longest time, though, they were considered just another variety of "dumb animal". Well, here are some of the things those "dumb animals" can do without any form of training: [URL not allowed]......more

Goodreads review by Bradley on October 09, 2019

This was a rather interesting overview of our favorite squishy tentacular friends in the ocean. It's not cutesy, however. It's basically a best-guess rundown of what we know about squids from the earliest instances in the ocean to the limited modern variety that remain today. It is SCIENCE, or at lea......more

Goodreads review by Dora on February 10, 2018

Had to return to the library when I was about 1/3 of the way through and won't be getting it back. If you want to read a book about cephalopod evolution, this is the one! Well-written, good storytelling, and engaging... for what it is. Turns out I didn't really want to read a book about cephalopod e......more

Goodreads review by Diana on February 10, 2024

Monarchs of the Sea: The Extraordinary 500-Million-Year History of Cephalopods [2017/2020] – ★★★★ This book is about the magnificent, enigmatic and elusive cephalopods (a class of molluscs to which octopuses and squid belong), their origin and 500-million-year history. Danna Staaf, a marine biologist......more

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