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Fascinating Shells: An Introduction to 121 of the World’s Most Wonderful Mollusks - Hardcover

Salvador, Andreia

  • 4.75 out of 5 stars
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9780226819136: Fascinating Shells: An Introduction to 121 of the World’s Most Wonderful Mollusks
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0226819132 ISBN 13: 9780226819136
Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2022

Synopsis

A New Scientist Best Book of the Year

Beautiful photographs of stunning shells from London's Natural History Museum, home to one of the most significant and comprehensive collections in the world.

Collected and treasured for their beauty, used in religious rituals, or even traded as currency, shells have fascinated humans for millennia. Ancient and enchanting, dazzling in form and variety, these beautiful objects come from mollusks, one of the most diverse groups in the animal kingdom, including snails, oysters, cuttlefish, and chitons. Soft-bodied, these creatures rely on shells for protection from enemies and their environments, from snowy mountains to arid deserts, in deep-sea hydrothermal vents and the jungles of the tropics, on rocky shores, and in coral reefs.

In this book, mollusk expert Andreia Salvador profiles some of the world’s most beautiful and quirky shells, each selected from the more than eight million specimens held in the collection at London’s Natural History Museum. We lock eyes with the hundred-eyed cowry, named after "the all-seeing one," the giant Argus Panoptes of Greek mythology. We see how shells' appearances translate into defense strategies, as with the zigzag nerite, which varies its patterning to deceive and confuse predators. And we meet shell inhabitants, such as the amber snail, which eats earthworms by sucking them up like spaghetti. Reproduced in full color and striking detail, these shells have much to reveal about the history of collecting, the science of taxonomy, and the human desire to understand the natural world.

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About the Author

Andreia Salvador is a senior curator of marine mollusca at the Natural History Museum in London.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Publisher
University of Chicago Press
Publication date
2022
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0226819132
ISBN 13 
9780226819136
Binding
Hardcover
Edition number
1
Number of pages
256
Rating
  • 4.75 out of 5 stars
    16 ratings by Goodreads