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Squid Empire: The Rise and Fall of the Cephalopods

por Danna Staaf

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13016208,757 (4.12)6
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 of swimming. With dozens of tentacles and formidable shells, they presided over an undersea empire for millions of years. But when fish evolved jaws, the ocean's former top predator became its most delicious snack. Cephalopods had to step up their game. Many species streamlined their shells and added defensive spines, but these enhancements only provided a brief advantage. Some cephalopods then abandoned the shell entirely, which opened the gates to a flood of evolutionary innovations: masterful camouflage, fin-supplemented jet propulsion, perhaps even dolphin-like intelligence. Squid Empire is an epic adventure spanning hundreds of millions of years, from the marine life of the primordial ocean to the calamari on tonight's menu. Anyone who enjoys the undersea world--along with all those obsessed with things prehistoric--will be interested in the sometimes enormous, often bizarre creatures that ruled the seas long before the first dinosaurs.… (mais)
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Mostrando 1-5 de 16 (seguinte | mostrar todos)
wasn't sure if I'd enjoy this, as it focuses largely on extinct cephalopods and my interest lies with the living The author kept it lively and entertaining , always maintaining the link to the modern animals, though, so I learned a lot and had fun doing it ( )
  cspiwak | Mar 6, 2024 |
4,5 stars

A pretty decent look into the history of cephalopods (at least for someone with basically zero knowledge on the topic). The writing was pretty approachable and I felt the author found a pretty good balance on keeping things factual without being dry. ( )
  tuusannuuska | Dec 1, 2022 |
Not always easy to follow, because it covers such a large range. Still, it is mostly accessible, and goes into a depth that I appreciated.

> the buoyant shell “an evolutionary step with a significance comparable to the development of wings in the insects.”

> A small tube of flesh called a siphuncle (based on the Latin word for, unsurprisingly, “small tube”) runs through every sealed-off chamber. Remarkably, the animal can control the saltiness of the blood in its siphuncle, thereby taking advantage of water’s tendency to diffuse across a membrane toward higher salt concentration, a tendency named osmosis. An extra-salty siphuncle naturally absorbs water from the phragmocone chambers, and the empty space left behind is filled with gases diffusing out from the blood.

> Despite evidence of shell shedding in Sphooceras, truncation remained a little-used technique for dealing with the unwieldy cephalopod shell. The mainstream approach became coiling the shell

> Because we associate modern pens with modern squid, there’s a certain tendency to associate fossil pens with squid as well. A dizzying variety of early fossil coleoids with pens, or in some cases just the pens by themselves, have been described and given squiddy names (look for the “teuth” root): Plesioteuthidae, Teudopsidae, Trachyteuthidae. Further study, however, suggests that nearly all of them were closer to octopuses

> Two electronic homes for tentacle science deserve special mention. FASTMOLL is a mailing list for researchers who study “fast mollusks” (which means, of course, the cephalopods), and despite their heavy workloads the scientists on the list responded quickly and generously to all my inquiries. TONMO, The Octopus News Magazine Online, is a forum for anyone interested in octopuses (and other cephalopods), amateur or professional. ( )
  breic | Mar 16, 2022 |
This was a rather interesting overview of our favorite squishy tentacular friends in the ocean. It's not cutesy, however. It's basically a best-guess rundown of what we know about squids from the earliest instances in the ocean to the limited modern variety that remain today.

It is SCIENCE, or at least a popular reporting of it. :)

I particularly liked the instances describing their brains, cognition, and long-term memory. The odd juxtaposition of (possibly) being colorblind despite the fantastic ability to blend in with so many colors was a close second. And the accounting of escape attempts and octopod wrestlers. :)

The ecological problems that might wipe these fascinating creatures out is similar to ALL the same problems the ocean is facing. Scary, sad, and enraging. The previous die-offs went on for long periods of time, long enough to acclimatize. The current cycle is rather rough.

I'm glad I read this. It's not sensationalist. Just factual. :) ( )
  bradleyhorner | Jun 1, 2020 |
Squid Empire: The Rise and Fall of the Cephalopods is a book that does exactly as "described on the tin". This is the fascinating tale of the evolutionary rise and fall (and possible rise again) of Cephalopods - everything from ammonites, nautiloids, squid, octopuses, cuttlefish and the other odd prehistoric creatures that get lumped in the "head-foot" category.

The author takes an evolutionary approach starting off with the first Cephalopods in the Cambrian, and ties in several threads of anatomy, biology, ecology and other aspects of marine life. She covers such topics are the swimming revolution, the invention of jet propulsion, shell development and abandonment, their co-evolution with fish, development of ink, paleontology, intelligence, how they deal with extinction events, how they deal with the current anthropocentric age, the ecology of these "swimming protein bars", and why modern squid don't fossilize.

Danna Staaf has a lovely, clear writing style that is fun, while at the same time maintaining the science of the topic. She also includes numerous helpful diagrams, illustrations and photographs.

This is a superbly written, entertaining and informative book about the evolution of certain mobile, tentacled, squishy creatures that live in the ocean.

( )
  ElentarriLT | Mar 24, 2020 |
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Introduction
Why Squid?

Long before humanity was even a twinkle in the eye of the first mammal, our planet was ruled by strange and fearsome creatures. Some grew to monstrous size, the largest animals the earth had ever seen. During their 400 million years of glory they diversified to fill every niche, from voracious predator to placid grazer—and then a global cataclysm almost completely wiped them out. Only a humble few of their descendants survive to keep us company today.
I

The World of the Head-Footed

Jet-propelled and flight-capable, iridescent and elastic, squid are a true marvel of nature. They're fast: they can swim twice as fast as an Olympic champion, shoot their tentacles out in less time than it takes you to blink, and alter their appearance at literally the speed of thought. They're flashy: some grow luminous lures at the ends of their arms, others squirt self-portraits in ink, and their skin creates any color from vivid red to iridescent blue.
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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 of swimming. With dozens of tentacles and formidable shells, they presided over an undersea empire for millions of years. But when fish evolved jaws, the ocean's former top predator became its most delicious snack. Cephalopods had to step up their game. Many species streamlined their shells and added defensive spines, but these enhancements only provided a brief advantage. Some cephalopods then abandoned the shell entirely, which opened the gates to a flood of evolutionary innovations: masterful camouflage, fin-supplemented jet propulsion, perhaps even dolphin-like intelligence. Squid Empire is an epic adventure spanning hundreds of millions of years, from the marine life of the primordial ocean to the calamari on tonight's menu. Anyone who enjoys the undersea world--along with all those obsessed with things prehistoric--will be interested in the sometimes enormous, often bizarre creatures that ruled the seas long before the first dinosaurs.

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594.58Natural sciences and mathematics Zoology Mollusks Cephalopods Squid

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