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

About the Author

Danna Staaf earned a PhD in invertebrate biology from Stanford University and has been studying cephalopods for decades. Her writing on marine life has appeared in Science, Atlas Obscura, and many other outlets, while her research has appeared in the Journal of Experimental Biology, Aquaculture, and others, as well as in numerous textbooks. She lives with her family in Northern California.

dannastaaf.com | @DannaStaaf

Acclaim for Monarchs of the Sea

Cephs rule! Monarchs of the Sea, like its protagonists, is nimble, fast, surprising, smart, and weird in the very coolest sense of the word. What could be more fun than jetting back in time to primordial seas with the monsters who really ruled our planet? In these pages, Danna Staaf makes every dino lover and every undersea adventurers dream come true. Its a fabulous read, with squishy, slimy delight on every page.
Sy Montgomery,New York Timesbestselling author of The Soul of an Octopus

This crystal-clear book will open your world to wider horizons and much deeper times.... Long before vertebrates evolved anything like higher intelligence, squids and octopuses were on a separate track to versatility, problem-solving, individual recognition, and deceit. Before we can know who we are, we must know who we are here withand who has come before us.
Carl Safina,New York Timesbestselling author of Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel

I loved this book.... Staafs approach is short and sweet, well-illustrated and strong on playful narrative.Nature

It is a treat to come across a writer with such specialized training who is able to turn esoteric knowledge into a page-turning read for all audiences.... Staaf captures what is rarely seen outside the ivory tower: scientists talking among themselves with a touch of irreverence. Researchers everywhere will surely relate.Science

This engaging book may do for early cephalopods what paleontologists did for dinosaurs in the 1960s: spark a public renaissance of appreciation for these magnificent creatures who once ruled the seas.
Jennifer Ouellette, author of Me, Myself, and Why and The Calculus Diaries

Intriguing.... This in-depth coverage of an often neglected but ecologically vital group will change your view of squid, octopuses, and their relatives.New Scientist

A book like [this] is a reminder that in any scientific narrative, there are always two stories at play. There is the history of the subject youre studying, and then there is the history of its discovery.New Republic

Fiendishly readable.The Inquisitive Biologist

Fresh and fascinating.The Times Literary Supplement

MONARCHS OF THE SEA: The Extraordinary 500-Million-Year History of Cephalopods
Copyright 2017, 2020 by Danna Staaf

Originally published in English as Squid Empire by ForeEdge, an imprint of University Press New England, in 2017. First published in revised form by
The Experiment, LLC, in 2020.

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or online reviews, no portion of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Staaf, Danna, author.
Title: Monarchs of the sea : the extraordinary 500-million-year history of
cephalopods / Danna Staaf.
Description: New York, NY : The Experiment, [2020] | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020027541 (print) | LCCN 2020027542 (ebook) | ISBN
9781615197408 (paperback) | ISBN 9781615197415 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Cephalopoda. | Cephalopoda--Evolution.
Classification: LCC QL430.2 .S728 2020 (print) | LCC QL430.2 (ebook) |
DDC 594/.5--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020027541
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020027542

ISBN 978-1-61519-740-8
Ebook ISBN 978-1-61519-741-5

Cover and text design by Beth Bugler
Author photograph by Josh Weaver

Manufactured in the United States of America

First printing September 2020
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Anton,
the microconch
to my macroconch

Cephalopods, with the unusual means at their disposal, could have become the monarchs of the sea. And they were so, in fact.

Jacques-Yves Cousteau & Philippe Diol, Octopus and Squid: The Soft Intelligence

Introduction

Why Squid?

L ong 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 grazerand then a global cataclysm almost completely wiped them out. Only a humble few of their descendants survive to keep us company today.

Of course, Im talking about cephalopods.

I could just as easily have been describing dinosaurs, except for one small hint: the stupendous length of the animals tenure. Dinosaurs werent around for nearly as long as cephalopods. Nevertheless, most people know a bit about dinosaurs, while theyve never heard of cephalopods. (The accent is on the first syllable: sef -ah-lo-pod. Some folks in the UK and Europe honor the words ancient Greek heritage with a hard C: kef -ah-lo-pod.) Even those who are familiar with these curious creatures usually know only the living onessquid and octopusesnot their long-extinct ancestors. I myself was in that camp for quite some time.

I met my first cephalopod on a family road trip when I was ten years old. At the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, I stood mesmerized by the rippling skin, the undulating arms, and the intimate eyes of a giant Pacific octopus. Shortly after returning home, with my fathers patient support, I procured a secondhand saltwater aquarium and became known at school as the girl with the pet octopus.

I devoured all the information I could find about these amazing animals. In the 1990s, that meant checking out books from the library on sea life and poring over the one or two pages that mentioned cephalopods. I discovered only one exclusively cephalopodic book