Ocean Bestiary: Meeting Marine Life from Abalone to Orca to Zooplankton (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780226818030)

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.

Author: Richard J. King
ISBN-10: 0226818039
ISBN-13: 9780226818030
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Language: English
Published: 05/26/2023
Pages: 320
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 8.10h x 5.80w x 1.00d

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 03/13/2023
Library Journal 04/01/2023 pg. 122
Booklist 04/15/2023 pg. 7