Nautilus. Visit any basement bar with a marine theme and one is likely to see netting with half-shells of a coiled cephalopod belonging to the genus Nautilus. The genus has four species, and all are found free-floating in the southwestern Pacific. Over time, aquarists have determined how to keep these creatures alive in marine aquaria. Paleontologist Peter Ward has written several geologically themed books, but his Natural History of Nautilus provides an overview of this group of cephalopods. Also valuable is Nautilus: The Biology and Paleo-biology of a Living Fossil, edited by W. Bruce Saunders and Neil Landman.
Vampire squid. A deep-water cephalopod first studied by Grace Pickford is the vampire squid. Because it has characteristics of both a squid and an octopus, it has been placed in its own category, Vampyromorpha. Richard Ellis has written a recent book on this group, The Little Blue-Eyed Vampire from Hell. This creature is not a vampire, and although it was initially thought to show little mobility, videos demonstrate that it can be quite active. Flusser and Bec’s Vampyroteuthis Infernalis uses the creature to examine a number of interesting philosophical questions, including whether the squid is more distant from humans than aliens from another planet might be.
Octopus. The classic book on octopuses oriented toward scientists is M. J. Wells’s Octopus: Physiology and Behaviour of an Advanced Invertebrate. Frank Lane’s Kingdom of the Octopus would better serve lay readers.
In Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea and the Deep Origins of Consciousness, Peter Godfrey-Smith explores the paradox of cephalopods. These creatures are characterized as the most intelligent invertebrates. Typically, intelligent animals (for example humans) are long-lived and social. Cephalopods, however, live, breed, and die after only one or two years. For the most part, they are not social organisms. Godfrey-Smith offers some solutions to this paradox. First, because most cephalopods lack a protective shell, they are essentially morsels of concentrated protein available to their predators. Thus, to avoid predation, cephalopods need to be not only aware of their environment but also able to avoid being eaten. The second aspect offered by Godfrey-Smith is that most cephalopods are extremely efficient predators, a situation which, again, requires intelligence. In this volume, Godfrey-Smith also offers chapters describing situations where, e.g., off the coast of southern Australia, octopuses occupy a small property, called Octopolis, where they show many aspects of social behavior.
Another key volume on octopuses is David Scheel’s Many Things under a Rock: The Mysteries of Octopuses. Scheel began his career as a wildlife biologist in Africa studying lions. Later in his career, he became an aquatic biologist assigned the duty of determining the number of octopuses along the coast of Alaska. He had never done this sort of work before, and it took him a while to discover the most efficient methodology. His solution was to find the dens rather than the octopuses themselves. His book delves into other topics dealing with octopus biology in other parts of the globe.
A final volume on octopuses that shouldn’t be missed is Mather, Anderson, and Woods’s Octopus: The Ocean’s Intelligent Invertebrate. These three academics have worked with octopuses in a variety of habitats.
Squid. There are many books that focus solely on squid. An older one by Gilbert, Adelman, and Arnold, Squid as Experimental Animals, concentrates on their use in neurobiological studies. Martin Wallen’s Squid is also of note.
