Cephalopods have enchanted a wide array of people. Tracy Chevalier is known for her novels dealing with artists. However, in her book Remarkable Creatures, she covers the life of Mary Anning, the English fossil collector. Although Anning’s forte was ichthyosaurs and their kin, among her better-selling fossils were the ammonites she dug out of the seaside cliffs.
In addition to her books dealing directly with the biology of cephalopods (mentioned earlier), Danna Staaf has written a fascinating biography of Jeanne Villepreux-Power, The Lady and the Octopus: How Jeanne Villepreux-Power Invented Aquariums and Revolutionized Marine Biology. Villepreux-Power grew up in a small town in central France and lost her mother and sister at an early age. She moved to Paris, where she became a seamstress and made a name for herself when she designed and sewed a dress for a royal princess. She then married a wealthy Irishman and they moved to Messina, Italy. Her interest in nature enabled her to become an early marine biologist. In carrying out her studies, she invented both glass and wooden aquaria and learned about the biology of the paper argonaut, a local cephalopod found in the seas of Messina. Although most of her scientific materials were lost in a shipwreck, through the work of Staaf and others her contributions to the development of marine biology have been preserved.
