Shells are exoskeletons of living creatures and have fascinated humans for millennia. Interesting Shells presents portraits of beautiful specimens from the Natural History Museum's vast collections, each accompanied by a caption explaining their unique characteristics - whether biological, historical or geographical.

Immerse yourself in this beautiful, absorbing guide to the marine world.

Earth owes its identity as the blue planet to the vast oceans of water that cover almost 70 per cent of its surface. Home to an abundance of marine life and vital in regulating Earth’s climate, the oceans are also the backdrop to daring exploits of seafaring and to colourful mythological tales. Combining arresting photography, rich illustrations, and engaging, expertly written text, The Ocean Book showcases the animals and plants, physical geography, and captivating human stories of the world’s oceans.

Whether you’re interested in blue whales, penguins, coral reefs, whirlpools, or the golden age of pirates, this is the perfect exploration of the ocean realm.

Great British Marine Animals is a colourful photographic guide to fish and invertebrate life in the seas around Britain. It helps identify a wide range of species and has a special focus on their behaviour with many spreads and sequences of stunning underwater photos to show them going about their busy lives. Beautiful sea anemones lash out with superbly armed tentacles, seemingly invincible crabs shed their armour suits to grow (some decorate them afterwards!), limpets argue with each other, versatile sea slugs recycle defensive weapons from their prey, starfish exert huge forces to pull open their victims while fish can build nests, clean each other or sometimes change sex when the situation demands - to list just a few examples! The extraordinarily sophisticated cuttlefish is given ten pages to show a range of its amazing skills, while the complex social life of the tompot blenny gets nine that even includes a panel of recognised individuals. This expanded 4th edition is much the biggest upgrade so far, containing 930 high quality underwater photographs (compared to 600 in the 3rd edition) and detailing 320 species (up from 280) in 432 pages (up from 320). The book is organised by animal groups and species but has a special additional 'behaviour index' to highlight their wonderfully diverse strategies and habits. It appeals to all ages and levels of knowledge.

Seaweed is so familiar and yet its names - pepper dulse, sea lettuce, bladderwrack - are largely unknown to us. In this short, exquisitely illustrated portrait, the Dutch poet and artist Miek Zwamborn shares her discoveries of its history, culture and use, from the Neolithic people of the Orkney Islands to sushi artisans in modern Japan. Seaweed troubled Columbus on his voyages across the Atlantic, intrigued von Humboldt in the Sargasso Sea and inspired artists from Hokusai to Matisse. Covering seaweed's collection by Victorians, its adoption into fashion and dance and its potential for combating climate change, and with a fabulous series of recipes based around the 'truffles of the sea', this is a wonderful gift for every nature lover's home.

This volume explores nonhuman animals’ involvement with human maritime activities in the age of sail—as well as the myriad multispecies connections formed across different geographical locations knitted together by the long history of global ship movement. Far from treating the ship as a confined space defined by the sea, Maritime Animals considers the ship’s connections to broader contexts and networks and covers a variety of locations, from the Canadian Arctic to the Pacific Islands. Each chapter focuses on the oceanic experiences of a particular species, from ship vermin, animals transported onboard as food, and animal specimens for scientific study to livestock, companion and working animals, deep-sea animals that find refuge in shipwrecks, and terrestrial animals that hunker down on flotsam and jetsam. Drawing on recent scholarship in animal studies, maritime studies, environmental humanities, and a wide range of other perspectives and storytelling approaches, Maritime Animals challenges an anthropocentric understanding of maritime history. Instead, this volume highlights the ways in which species, through their interaction with the oceans, tell stories and make histories in significant and often surprising ways. In addition to the editor, the contributors to this volume include Anna Boswell, Nancy Cushing, Lea Edgar, David Haworth, Donna Landry, Derek Lee Nelson, Jimmy Packham, Laurence Publicover, Killian Quigley, Lynette Russell, Adam Sundberg, and Thom van Dooren.