A fascinating journey with the sea creature that has captured human
imagination for thousands of years
Poseidon's Steed trails the seahorse through secluded waters across
the globe in a kaleidoscopic history that mirrors man's centuries-old
fascination with the animal, sweeping from the reefs of Indonesia,
through the back streets of Hong Kong, and back in time to ancient
Greece and Rome. Over time, seahorses have surfaced in some unlikely
places. We see them immortalized in the decorative arts; in tribal
folklore, literature, and ancient myth; and even on the pages of the
earliest medical texts, prescribed to treat everything from skin
complaints to baldness to flagging libido. Marine biologist Helen Scales
eloquently shows that seahorses are indeed fish, though scientists have
long puzzled over their exotic anatomy, and their very strange sex
lives--male seahorses are the only males in the animal world that
experience childbirth!
Our first seahorse imaginings appeared six thousand years ago on cave
walls in Australia. The ancient Greeks called the seahorse hippocampus
(half-horse, half-fish) and sent it galloping through the oceans of
mythology, pulling the sea god Poseidon's golden chariot. The seahorse
has even been the center of a modern-day international art scandal: A
two-thousand-year-old winged seahorse brooch was plundered by Turkish
tomb raiders and sold to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
A book that is as charming as the seahorse itself, Poseidon's Steed
brings to life an aquatic treasure.
Seahorses lead quiet lives, tucked away out of sight on the seafloor. It
is rare to catch a glimpse of a seahorse in its natural habitat. But
even if few have seen one live, these exotic, seemingly prehistoric
creatures exist quite vividly in our imaginations and they have
mesmerized scientists, artists, and storytellers throughout time with
their otherworldly rarity.
Poseidon's Steed is a sweeping journey that takes us from the coral
reefs and seagrass meadows of Indonesia where many seahorses makes their
natural habitat to the back streets of Hong Kong where a thriving black
market seahorse trade is concealed. Throughout history, seahorses have
surfaced in some unexpected places and Scales also follows the seahorse
back in time, from our most rudimentary seahorse imaginings six thousand
years ago on cave walls in Australia, to the myths of ancient Greece.
Scientists have long puzzled over seahorses' unusual anatomy and their
very strange sex lives. And male seahorses are the only males in the
animal world that experience childbirth! Seahorses are not what
scientists call a 'keystone' species. They rely on a healthy ocean to
survive, but the marine ecosystem does not rely on them. But their
delicate beauty reminds us that we rely on the seas not only to fill our
dinner plates, but also to feed our imaginations.
