Conclusion: The proximate cause of death may be falling in love with the idea of a person, or the idea of a relationship." Morphing Like a Cuttlefish: kingpin cuttlefish are accused of going in drag: males will adopt female patterns to get close to the female for mating. It's a very personal piece that describes in pieces how their sexual evolution morphs. Unlike the organ hippocampus in the human brain, there is a mythical sea creature from Phoenician and Greek mythology known as the Hippocampus. He has the lower body of a fish and the upper body of a horse, and he is said t0 have drawn the chariot of the god Poseidon. 49. The Fish-Man of Lierganes

This book] marks the arrival of a phenomenal writer creating an intellectual channel entirely their own, within which whales and feral goldfish swim by the enchantment, ache, and ecstasy of human life" This is a miraculous, transcendental book. Across these essays, Imbler has choreographed a dance of metaphor between the wonders of the ocean's creatures and the poignancy of human experience, each enriching the other in surprising and profound ways. To write with such grace, skill, and wisdom would be impressive enough; to have done so in their first major work is truly breathtaking. Sabrina Imbler is a generational talent, and this book is a gift to us all" Thousands of fertilized sea urchin eggs, starfish and blue clams returned to Earth with the astronauts. The personal reveries frequently cross the subtle line between candour and solipsism, the cute and the gauche, artlessness and shallowness, sincerity and cringeworthiness. Instances of romantic awakening, admissions of self-loathing, explorations of sexuality and contemplations of racial identity (Imbler is mixed race) convey personal pain but ultimately don’t strike home with much force or edge. One exception is a powerful chapter called Beware the Sand Striker, which combines a study of predators’ strategies in the natural world with incidents of male violence and harassment in the author’s own life, as well as those reported in public #MeToo testimonies. Sabrina Imbler’s dazzling new collection of essays, How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures, interweaves the magic of these sea dwellers with Imbler’s musings on the human experience.

Nudibranch

In Greek mythology, Nereus is a mythical sea creature who lives at the bottom of the Aegean Sea. He is the father of 50 nereids, and he is said to be a God who never lies and in whom one can trust. Sometimes referred to as “the old man and the sea”, Nereus is a god whose empire lies in the Aegean Sea. 7. Triton A selkie is a mythical sea creature or water spirit that can change from a seal to a human by shedding their skin, hence the name Selkie, or “seal folk”. Selkies originated in Norse and Celtic mythology and are believed to reside in the Northern Islands of Scotland. 43. Bunyip Perhaps any human would pale in comparison to the wonders of the sea creatures Imbler describes with vividness and insight. Watch out for the bit where humble pet goldfish are released into open water and all hell breaks loose or for the lovely, bold descriptions of sturgeon, whose “mountainous scutes and chin bristles jut out like stalactites” and who “glide aimlessly, with an ossified kind of grace”. They looked like raindrops, or tears, water in a state of falling. I couldn’t tell if they were dead or alive. I held one up to the sky and its dimpled gelatin muddled light like a prism, turning sunbeams into deliriously electric blues, cherry-blossom pinks, kelpy greens. I threw handfuls of the blobs in the air above me and the droplets filled the sky, shredding sunlight into rainbows.”

A young queer science writer on some of the ocean's strangest creatures and what they can teach us about human empathy and survival. As a mixed Chinese and white non-binary writer working in a largely white, male field, science journalist Sabrina Imbler has always been drawn to the mystery of life in the sea, and particularly to creatures living in hostile or remote environments. Each essay in their debut collection profiles one such creature: the mother octopus who starves herself while watching over her eggs, the Chinese sturgeon whose migration route has been decimated by pollution and dams, the bizarre Bobbitt worm (named after Lorena) and other uncanny creatures lurking in the deep ocean, far below where the light reaches. These giant fish survived the asteroid and the Ice Age and so much more only to be wiped out by cosmically puny obstacles: our dams, our boats, our chemicals, our taste for caviar.” Imbler is not a memoirist (yet) but a gifted science and nature writer, capable of describing sea creatures with knowledge, originality and supple poeticism. Lusca is a giant sea monster living in the Blue Hole near the island of Andros in the Bahamas This mythical sea creature is said to be enormous, resembling a giant octopus or giant squid and allegedly measuring a whopping 75 feet in length. 23. Vodyanoy It’s a gloriously queer narrative, exploring Imbler’s relationships, gender, and queer community more generally. They also discuss their mixed race identity, both personally and in relation to their mixed race partner. In one essay, they write about how to give a necropsy report of dead whales, and then they reiterate different versions of the necropsy report of a previous relationship, giving a different proposed cause of death each time.Chessie is the name given to a mythical sea creature turned ecological icon. As a staple of American folklore, Chessie is reportedly a sea monster living in the Chesapeake Bay. Since its alleged sighting in 1936, Chessie has become the subject of a 1986 coloring book depicting the need for protection of the ecology around the Bay. 41. Iku-Turso How to Draw a Sperm Whale: I liked this one, although the formatting it vaguely like a report was a challenge. This one tries to parallel their college thesis on sperm whales, information on necropsies, and their first girlfriend, M. (they abbreviate it 'M,' which I found distracting, like we were reading an impression of a medical report, except medical reports would no longer use abbreviations). Given how much I abhor whaling, even the historical accounts of it, it was hard to warm to this section. However, I thought it awkwardly done and felt, well, like a college writing project.