Octopus!: The Most Mysterious Creature in the Sea
10 best books like Octopus!: The Most Mysterious Creature in the Sea (Katherine Harmon Courage): End of the Megafauna: The Fate of the World's Hugest, Fiercest, and Strangest Animals, Voyage of the Turtle: In Pursuit of the Earth's Last Dinosaur, Journey of the Pink Dolphins: An Amazon Quest, Squid Empire: The Rise and Fall of the Cephalopods, The Secret Lives of Bats: My Adventures with the World's Most Misunderstood Mammals, An Obsession with Butterflies: Our Long Love Affair with a Singular Insect, Octopus: The Ocean's Intelligent Invertebrate, Pterosaurs: Natural History, Evolution, Anatomy, Narwhals: Arctic Whales in a Melting World, Aquagenesis: The Origin and Evolution of Life in the Sea
End of the Megafauna: The Fate of the World's Hugest, Fiercest, and Strangest Animals
| Author | Ross D.E. MacPhee |
| ISBN | 0393249298 |
Until a few thousand years ago, creatures that could have been from a sci-fi thriller—including gorilla-sized lemurs, 500-pound birds, and crocodiles that weighed a ton or more—roamed the earth. These great beasts, or “megafauna,” lived on every habitable continent and on many islands....
| Author | Carl Safina |
| ISBN | 0805078916 |
The story of an ancient sea turtle and what its survival says about our future, from the award-winning writer and naturalist
Though nature is indifferent to the struggles of her creatures, the human effect on them is often premeditated. The distressing decline of sea turtles in Pacific waters...
| Author | Sy Montgomery |
| ISBN | 0743200268 |
Scientists call them "Inia geoffrensis," an ancient species of toothed whale whose origin dates back about 15 million years. To the local people of the Amazon, pink river dolphins are "botos," shape shifters that, in the guise of human desire, can claim your soul and take you to the Encante, an enchanted...
| Author | Danna Staaf |
| ISBN | 1611689236 |
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...
| Author | Merlin Tuttle |
| ISBN | 0544382277 |
A lifetime of adventures with bats around the world reveals why these special and imperiled creatures should be protected rather than feared.
From menacing moonshiners and armed bandits to charging elephants and man-eating tigers, Merlin Tuttle has stopped at nothing to find and protect...
| Author | Sharman Apt Russell |
| ISBN | 0465071600 |
Butterflies have always served as a metaphor for resurrection and transformation, but as Sharman Apt Russell points out in this lyrical meditation, butterflies are above all objects of obsession. She reveals the logic behind our endless fascination with butterflies and introduces us to the legendary...
| Author | Jennifer A. Mather |
| ISBN | 1604690674 |
The visually arresting and often misunderstood octopus has long captured popular imagination. With an alien appearance and an uncanny intellect, this exceptional sea creature has inspired fear in famous lore and legends—from the giant octopus attack in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to Ursula...
| Author | Mark P. Witton |
| ISBN | 0691150613 |
For 150 million years, the skies didn't belong to birds--they belonged to the pterosaurs. These flying reptiles, which include the pterodactyls, shared the world with the nonavian dinosaurs until their extinction 65 million years ago. Some pterosaurs, such as the giant azhdarchids, were the largest...
| Author | Todd McLeish |
| ISBN | 0295992646 |
Among all the large whales on Earth, the most unusual and least studied is the narwhal, the northernmost whale on the planet and the one most threatened by global warming. Narwhals thrive in the fjords and inlets of northern Canada and Greenland. These elusive whales, whose long tusks were the stuff...
| Author | Richard Ellis |
| ISBN | 0142001562 |
Life on earth began in the sea, and in this tour de force of natural history, authority on marine biology and illustrator Richard Ellis chronicles more than three billion years of aquatic history. From the first microbes and jawless fishes that evolved into the myriad species we know today-sharks,...
| Author | Claire Nouvian |
| ISBN | 0226595668 |
On dry land, most organisms are confined to the surface, or at most to altitudes of a hundred meters—the height of the tallest trees. In the oceans, though, living space has both vertical and horizontal dimensions: with an average depth of 3800 meters, the oceans offer 99% of the space on Earth where...
| Author | Wendy Williams |
| ISBN | 0810984652 |
Kraken is the traditional name for gigantic sea monsters, and this book introduces one of the most charismatic, enigmatic, and curious inhabitants of the sea: the squid. The pages take the reader on a wild narrative ride through the world of squid science and adventure, along the way addressing some...
Beneath Cold Seas: The Underwater Wilderness of the Pacific Northwest
| Author | David Hall |
| ISBN | 0295994886 |
Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award Foundation Award for Design and Artistic Merit
This book is a work of art from every possible angle - from the exquisite photographs, to the book's design, to its flawless printing and production process. . . . Hall has everything right in this book....
Sex, Drugs, and Sea Slime: The Oceans' Oddest Creatures and Why They Matter
| Author | Ellen Prager |
| ISBN | 0226678725 |
Prager takes a tack in this book that I've been noticing more frequently in non-fiction books. Each chapter ends in a section basically called (to paraphrase) "Who Give A Fuck?"¹ This details the human uses, or potential uses, of the organism being discussed e.g. "In Korea, the deslimed skin of hagfishes...
| Author | Brian Switek |
| ISBN | 0374135061 |
Dinosaurs, with their awe-inspiring size, terrifying claws and teeth, and otherworldly abilities, occupy a sacred place in our childhoods. They loom over museum halls, thunder through movies, and are a fundamental part of our collective imagination. In My Beloved Brontosaurus, the dinosaur fanatic...
Venom: The Secrets of Nature's Deadliest Weapon
| Author | Ronald Jenner |
| ISBN | 1588344541 |
Venom brings readers face to face with some of the most dangerous creatures on the planet, including jellyfish, snakes, and wasps, as it uncovers the story of venom. The book explores how venom is used for predation, defense, competition, and communication by an incredible diversity of species. It...
| Author | Christie Wilcox |
| ISBN | 0374712212 |
A thrilling tale of encounters with nature’s masters of biochemistry
From the coasts of Indonesia to the rainforests of Peru, venomous animals are everywhere—and often lurking out of sight. Humans have feared them for centuries, long considering them the assassins and pariahs of the...
| Author | Sylvia A. Earle |
| ISBN | 0449910652 |
Sylvia is an inspiring woman and has had some amazing experiences!! It makes me sad to know that things were already looking bad when this book was published and it’s only gotten worse. But her message is still one of striving to do what we can, whether as an individual or as a group, to protect or restore...
| Author | Helen Scales |
| ISBN | 1472911369 |
Seashells, stretching from the deep past into the present day, are touchstones leading into fascinating realms of the natural world and cutting-edge science. Members of the phylum Mollusca are among the most ancient animals on the planet. Their shells provide homes for other animals, and across...
Spineless: Portraits of Marine Invertebrates, the Backbone of Life
| Author | Susan Middleton |
| ISBN | 1419710079 |
In Spineless, acclaimed photographer Susan Middleton explores the mysterious and surprising world of marine invertebrates, which represent more than 98 percent of the known animal species in the ocean. They are also astonishingly diverse in their shapes, patterns, textures, and colors—in...
| Author | Carl Zimmer |
| ISBN | 1936221691 |
Science writer Carl Zimmer and evolutionary biologist Douglas Emlen have teamed up to write a textbook intended for biology majors that will inspire students while delivering a solid foundation in evolutionary biology. Zimmer brings the same story-telling skills he displayed in The Tangled Bank,...
Sex on Earth: A Celebration of Animal Reproduction
| Author | Jules Howard |
| ISBN | 1408193418 |
One thousand million years ago, a huge revolution occurred on Earth--sex happened for the first time. From that moment on, the world became ever more colorful and bizarre, ringing with elaborate songs and dances, epic battles, and rallying cries as the desires of males and females collided, generation...
