Sea creatures often take the form of monsters in the human imagination. Two books by Richard Ellis document human fascination with huge sea creatures. The first, Monsters of the Sea: The History, Natural History, and Mythology of the Ocean’s Most Fantastic Creatures, examines all sea creatures, past and present. His second, The Search for the Giant Squid, covers only the attempts to find living Architeuthis, the genus of giant squid that has been the object of attention for most teuthologists, including Fred Aldrich of Memorial University in Nova Scotia and Clyde Roper of the Smithsonian Institution. Another book focused on the giant squid is Otto Latva’s The Giant Squid in Transatlantic Culture: The Monsterization of Molluscs.
The most infamous cephalopod-inspired monster is the kraken. A fascinating read is Wendy Williams’s Kraken: The Curious, Exciting, and Slightly Disturbing Science of Squid. Williams, a journalist, pursues her interest in cephalopods by visiting and interviewing prominent cephalopod biologists.
Front cover image for The giant squid in transatlantic culture : the monsterization of molluscs The giant squid in transatlantic culture by 
