THE OCEANS MENAGERIE

A THE TIMES BEST BOOK OF 2025 SO FAR A transporting exploration of the deep sea and how our planet s strangest most ancient and astonishing creatures have urgent relevance to cutting edge science today Revelatory WILLIAM GIBSON Each page is full of wonder and surprise STEVE BRUSATTE Magic TOM MUSTILLHundred year old giant clams coral kingdoms the size and shape of cities and jellyfish that glow in the dark ocean invertebrates are among the oldest and most diverse organisms on Earth seeming to bend the rules of land based biology Although sometimes unseen in the deep these incredible spineless creatures contain 600 million years of adaptation to problems of disease energy consumption nutrition and defence Marine ecologist Dr Drew Harvell takes us diving from Hawaii to the Salish Sea from the Caribbean to Indonesia to uncover the incredible underwater superpowers of spineless creatures we meet corals many times stronger than steel or concrete sponges who create potent chemical compounds to fight off disease and sea stars who garden the coastlines keeping all the other nearby species in perfect balance As our planet changes fast the biomedical engineering and energy innovations of these wondrous creatures hold ever more important secrets to ou