A delightful A-to-Z menagerie of the sea--whimsically illustrated,
authoritative, and thought-provoking.
For millennia, we have taken to the waves. And yet, for humans, the
ocean remains our planet's most inaccessible region, the place about
which we know the least. From A to Z, abalone to zooplankton, and
through both text and original illustrations, Ocean Bestiary is a
celebration of our ongoing quest to know the sea and its creatures.
Focusing on individual species or groups of animals, Richard J. King
embarks upon a global tour of ocean wildlife, including beluga whales,
flying fish, green turtles, mako sharks, noddies, right whales, sea cows
(as well as sea lions, sea otters, and sea pickles), skipjack tuna,
swordfish, tropicbirds, walrus, and yellow-bellied sea snakes. But more
than this, King connects the natural history of ocean animals to the
experiences of people out at sea and along the world's coastlines. From
firsthand accounts passed down by the earliest Polynesian navigators to
observations from Wampanoag clamshell artists, African-American
whalemen, Korean female divers (or haenyeo), and today's pilots of
deep-sea submersibles--and even to imaginary sea expeditions launched
through poems, novels, and paintings--Ocean Bestiary weaves together a
diverse array of human voices underrepresented in environmental history
to tell the larger story of our relationship with the sea. Sometimes
funny, sometimes alarming, but always compelling, King's vignettes
reveal both how our perceptions of the sea have changed for the better
and how far we still have to go on our voyage.
