The tour of the oceans in 80 fish

If ever there is a place in the world that appears dominated by fantasy and dreams to our gaze, it is the one hidden under the waves of the sea. Between science and anthropology, literature and ecology, Helen Scales guides us on a rapid dive into the oceanic universe, to meet 80 creatures capable of adapting for millennia to the most adverse conditions and evolving into a gaudy multitude of shapes and colours: from the small boxer crab to the majestic floating of manta rays, up to the kingdom of the sea dragon, so black that it is almost impossible to photograph it.

Helen Scales is a marine biologist, writer and radio presenter. Her ocean studies have taken her from Madagascar to the remote coral reefs of Borneo, to the oyster-rich mangroves of West Africa and the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico. His publications include "Spirals in Time" (2015, shortlisted for the Royal Society of Biology Book Award, and for the Daily Telegraph's science book of the year), "The Brilliant Abyss" (2021) and, for The Hippocampus, “The Secret Life of Seashells (2022). His writings on life in the oceans have been published in National Geographic, The Guardian and New Scientist.