Waiting for Aphrodite: Journeys into the Time Before Bones

Sue Hubbell has written beautifully about her experiences as a beekeeper in rural Missouri. For example, I recommend her "Broadsides from the Other Orders and "A Country Year". Recently, she moved to the coast of Maine and this book describes her wonder at the new creatures she finds on the coast, comparing and contrasting them to the ones with which she had been familiar. In all cases, she sticks to invertebrates. I found the book to be particularly interesting because the animals she describes are ones that nearly all of us have seen: earthworms, "pillbugs", crickets, millipedes, sea urchins, sponges, horseshoe crabs, fireflies, and bees. However, she interleaves these with animals with which fewer of us have experience: sponges, sea cucumbers, nudibranches, and the elusive Aphrodite aculeata, the "sea mouse". In addition to her observations in Missouri and Maine, she also takes us with her to a rain forest in Belize and a tropical island in the Caribbean, and she does a fine job of showing that an understanding of evolution is necessary for all of this to make sense.

Publication information
Pick Attribution: 

Sue Hubbell

Publication Date: 
Friday, January 1, 1999
Price: 
$13.00
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