Danna Staaf 
Monarchs of the Sea: The Extraordinary 500-Million-Year History of Cephalopods 

From the author of Nursery Earth, a “nimble, fast, surprising, smart, and weird in the very coolest sense of the word” (Sy Montgomery) exploration of the sometimes enormous, often bizarre creatures that ruled the seas long before the first dinosaurs—a Science Friday Book Club Pick

Cephalopods, Earth’s first truly substantial animals, are still among us: Their fascinating family tree features squid, octopuses, nautiluses, and more. The inventors of swimming, cephs presided over the sea for millions of years. But when fish evolved jaws, cephs had to step up their game (or end up on the menu). Some evolved defensive spines. Others abandoned their shells entirely, opening the floodgates for a tidal wave of innovation: masterful camouflage, fin-supplemented jet propulsion, and intelligence we’ve yet to fully measure. In
Monarchs of the Sea, marine biologist Danna Staaf unspools how these otherworldly creatures once ruled the deep—and why they still captivate us today.



Publisher’s Note:
Monarchs of the Sea was previously published in hardcover as
Squid Empire.

About the author

Danna Staaf earned a Ph D in biology from Stanford University with her studies of baby squid. She is the author of Monarchs of the Sea and The Lady and the Octopus,  and she has written for Science, Atlas Obscura,  and Nautilus. She lives in California with her human family, a cat, and a garden full of grubs, caterpillars, maggots, and innumerable other babies.