Sensuous Seas: Tales of a Marine Biologist [Hardcover]

From the bizarre to the macabre, nature's ingenuity knows only the bounds of evolutionary advantage.

A small, appetizing, cleaner fish waves to big, passing predators "advertising its services." The savage behemoth approaches, assumes an unthreatening stance and is cleaned of parasites by the smaller creature.

The Portuguese man `o war fish lives safe from its enemies among the poisonous tentacles of its namesake gasbag jellyfish ("no brain, no blood, no heart, no anus"). But the fish, which must dart out to feed, has never evolved an immunity to the man `o war's paralyzing venom other than its own agility.

Clownfish (remember Nemo?) mate for life and live among the poisonous tentacles of the sea anemone, paying for their safe refuge by feeding the anemone. "If the female dies, the male becomes a female and a new male joins her."

Sex change is pretty common in this eat and be eaten world. Even more efficient are the hermaphrodites, like the sea hares, who have both male and female equipment and mate in group circles.


A biologist with a half-century's experience, a professor and the author of nine books, Kaplan introduces each animal in this collection of essays on the mating and feeding habits of sea creatures with an anecdotal encounter. Many involve personal experience, often with his students, who quickly learn that the most flamboyantly colorful are often the most dangerous, like the red and white fringed fireworm which has hundreds of pretty poison barbs.

But few of these, not even the blue-ringed octopus whose bite kills in minutes, compare in horror with a small Amazonian catfish who swims up a human's urinary tract, extends its spines for secure placement and begins rapidly tearing at and consuming its victim's innards.

However, for pure unadulterated cruelty as a way of life nothing (at least in this book) matches a tiny, free-swimming barnacle larvae that takes up residence in a crab, turns it into a female if it happens to be male, consumes all flesh and organs not required to keep the crab alive, and then fills in the newly vacated space with its own tissue. The barnacle then extrudes sexual organs, which attract a couple of males who also take up residence in the crab. Thereafter, "endless hordes of larvae are released periodically" from the hapless host.

Kaplan aims - successfully - to entertain, amuse, shock and amaze readers while teaching. Describing the perilous lives of shrimp, fish, snails, worms and more, he shows how evolution provides the most efficient means for surviving long enough to reproduce. These involve some pretty ingenious designs.

Like the lettuce sea slug that basks in the sun on its blade of turtle grass. It consumes algae and conveys the green chloroplasts to the lacy frills on its back, then gathers energy from the sun through photosynthesis like a plant! But, to take advantage of this free energy it must expose itself to the sun and any passing predator. It survives by tasting so bad that predators spit it out unharmed.

Kaplan does not mention what does eat it though something must since the world is not overrun with lettuce sea slugs. He also doesn't say how many offspring the hermaphrodite sea slugs produce, but most of the sea creatures discussed here produce thousands upon thousands of progeny and many are barely holding their own even though it takes only two to replace the parents.

Some creatures - seahorses and shrimp to name only two - are endangered by human predation, but even without humans the sea is a tough environment with numerous hungry predators on the prowl at every stage of life.

With vivid writing, a sense of humor and truly fascinating creatures to work with, Kaplan creates a feel for the teeming sea and rouses a sense of wonder in his readers. Line drawings in each chapter illustrate the creatures and their life cycles. This is a book for anyone with even a small bit of curiosity about the hidden world around them.

-- Portsmouth Herald

When I heard that Kaplan had written a book, I wondered if the man could be captured by the printed page. No problem. His book immediately took me back to his wonderful marine biology class in Jamaica. His stories were always fascinating, and I am happy to see them recorded here. The reader can appreciate that he is a character and a wonderful educator. His knowledge has also inspired many to continue their studies of the conplexities found in the sea. Everyone interested in marine biology should read this book. There are so many surprises. Beautiful drawings.

If Miss Jean Brodie was a marine biologist she would, after reading the first page, dismiss this book with its discussion of the attributes of 'Miss Nubile' and hormone laden young men as soft porn. In doing so she would miss out on a distillation of over 30 years experience from a committed, slightly eccentric educationalist and respected academic with a passion for tropical marine ecology. For anyone teaching biology or marine science this engagingly written book is a marvellous toolbox of anecdotes and examples that will stimulate even the most cynical of students.

Each chapter follows a roughly similar pattern with a lyrical initial paragraph and an anecdotal introduction to set the scene followed by a series of easily digestible sections on the same theme. The subject matter for each section, drawn from his years of experience on the field, ranges from the dangers of eating fugu (puffer fish) through to the disproportionate size of the humble barnacles penis. Through a colourful and often humorous approach to each topic, the reader is given a toe-hold grasp of some fairly chewy areas of biology (e.g. honest signalling, evolution, symbiosis, behaviour).

I showed this book to my mother-in-law (not a biologist) who was impressed by the ease with which she could understand the subjects and concepts explored. Having had her interest stimulated by the book she proceeded to bombard me with more questions - how I wish my own students would react similarly to my delivery! I will be using much of the material presented in Sensuous Seas to spice up my own lectures to marine biology undergraduates but this book will also be of interest to armchair and amateur field naturalists.

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