Synopsis
Written during a long sea voyage from England through the Mediterranean, Civilization and the Limpet unveils many fascinating phenomena of undersea life. Wells captures with exquisite detail how limpets, like bees, navigate by the stars; how the brainless sea urchin makes a myriad of critical survival decisions every day; how “deserted islands” teem with an incredible abundance of animal life; and why deep-diving whales never get the bends. Elegant and finely crafted, Civilization and the Limpet will enlighten, amuse, and awe anyone interested in the natural world.
Reviews
Readers seeking enlightenment on sea creatures need look no farther. In 25 breezy, sometimes whimsical essays, Wells (You and Me and the Animal World) provides an entertaining introduction to marine biology, from sea urchins, limpets and tubeworms to mackerel, dolphins and basking sharks. He explains buoyancy, navigation, luminescence, hermaphroditism and warm-bloodedness in certain fish. A yachtsman, Wells describes the buildup of marine organisms on boat hulls (fouling) as "an imitation of a moderately sheltered coastline." His specialty is the cephalopods (octopus, squid, cuttlefish, nautilus), and he offers advice on catching an octopus and recounts his adventures collecting nautilus in New Guinea. Finally, he defends a career in biology as one that is never boring?a claim borne out by his winsome book.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
This volume of gracefully interwoven essays presents the elements of biology to the lay reader via examples from the marine world. Wells, a zoologist at Cambridge University and an avid yachtsman, conveys his observations of sea urchins, starfish, limpets, dolphins, octopuses, and nautiluses and relates them to reproductive biology, animal behavior, animal navigation, metabolism, floating and buoyancy, and evolution. Begun as separate articles while Wells was sailing from Southampton, England to France, the chapters intersperse personal anecdotes and accounts of Wells's scientific background and experiences with the facts of marine biology. Like Carl Sagan in Billions and Billions (LJ 5/15/97), Wells argues that knowledge of science is just as important as that of art, music, or politics. A suitable addition to popular science collections.AJudith Barnett, Pell Marine Science Lib., Univ. of R.I., Kingston
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
A set of essays on marine animals is not necessarily a cold fish, as Wells illustrates in these warm appreciations of how sea creatures make their way in the "uncharitable" world of the ocean. Many of the animals he considers--sea urchins and limpets, for instance--exist at the bottom of the food chain, but when their behavior (other than scouring rocks for green scum) is closely scrutinized, they excite wonderment rather than contempt. And Wells is a wonderer who asks how, lacking a brain, a sea urchin moves; how the mollusks called limpets, with not much of a brain, display unerring homing ability; and why lugworms have a 40-minute ingestion-to-excretion cycle. His answers to such questions open a window on the world of tidal-zone life and more, for he also ventures farther offshore to wonder (again) how fish stay buoyant and whales avoid the bends. Then it's back to shallow waters for observations of his favorite family, the cephalopods--octopuses, squid, and nautiluses. An elegant, eye-opening verbal aquarium Gilbert Taylor
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