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Citizens of the Sea: Wondrous Creatures From the Census of Marine Life
National Geographic underwater photographers and the Census of Marine Life capture the astonishing diversity and the most intriguing organisms in the ocean in this riveting book, by marine scientist Nancy Knowlton.
As you read lively vignettes about sea creatures’ names, defenses, migration, mating habits, and more, you’ll be amazed at wonders like . . .
· The almost inconceivable number of creatures in the marine world. From the bounty of microbes in one drop of seawater, we can calculate that there are more individuals in the oceans than stars in the universe.
· The sophisticated sensory abilities that help these animals survive. For many, the standard five senses are just not enough.
· The incredible distances that seabirds and other species cover. Some will feed in both Arctic and Antarctic waters within a single year.
· The odd relationships common in the marine world. From a dental hygienist for fish to a walrus’s one-night stand, you’ll find beauty, practicality, and plenty of eccentricity in sea-life socialization.
Brilliantly photographed and written in an easygoing style, Citizens of the Sea will inform and enchant you with close-up documentation of the fascinating facts of life in the ocean realm.
As you read lively vignettes about sea creatures’ names, defenses, migration, mating habits, and more, you’ll be amazed at wonders like . . .
· The almost inconceivable number of creatures in the marine world. From the bounty of microbes in one drop of seawater, we can calculate that there are more individuals in the oceans than stars in the universe.
· The sophisticated sensory abilities that help these animals survive. For many, the standard five senses are just not enough.
· The incredible distances that seabirds and other species cover. Some will feed in both Arctic and Antarctic waters within a single year.
· The odd relationships common in the marine world. From a dental hygienist for fish to a walrus’s one-night stand, you’ll find beauty, practicality, and plenty of eccentricity in sea-life socialization.
Brilliantly photographed and written in an easygoing style, Citizens of the Sea will inform and enchant you with close-up documentation of the fascinating facts of life in the ocean realm.
216 pages, Hardcover
First published September 14, 2010
11 people are currently reading
150 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
January 23, 2026
Beautiful, fascinating, and all-around wonderful book highlighting the results of the ten year "Census of the Sea," only made bittersweet by the realization that the census concluded (and this book was published) a full 15 years — or two Donald Trump science-denying administrations — ago, so things have obviously gotten a LOT worse since then.
But taken on its own with politics removed, this is just an amazing snapshot of the endless variety of God's creation/Darwin's evolution (take your pick). If you don't love and aren't amazed by the ocean and its inhabitants, you just haven't looked hard enough. A quick sampling:
But taken on its own with politics removed, this is just an amazing snapshot of the endless variety of God's creation/Darwin's evolution (take your pick). If you don't love and aren't amazed by the ocean and its inhabitants, you just haven't looked hard enough. A quick sampling:
• The "punch" of the mantis shrimp accelerates like a .22 cal bullet, making it one of the fastest movements in the animal kingdom; the resulting shockwave is strong enough to shatter aquarium glassSadly, on the bad news front, there are these facts:
• They also have one of the most advanced eyes in the world, with ten color detectors in the "normal" visual range (we have three), along with five more in the ultraviolet range (we have none)
• Certain algae-eating slugs store chlorophyll so that they can conduct photosynthesis themselves, self-feeding for months
• There are probably 800,000 large whale carcasses on the sea bottom at any one time, each one supporting up to 40,000 individual scavengers
• Some species of eyeless, brainless coral can somehow accurately monitor the world so that they release their eggs exactly ninety minutes after the full moon in September
• The prehistoric, lobe-finned coelacanth — thought extinct until the 1930s — is more closely related to humans than to fish like tuna or cod
• Some fish change their sex daily
• Best fish name ever: the sarcastic fringehead
• Engineers have designed wind turbine blades based on the bumpy design of whale flukes, enabling them to generate the same power with 60% less wind
• "Venus flower baskets" are so delicately constructed that they were once thought to be the product of Chinese craftsmen; each basket is home to a pair of male/female shrimp which grow up in the basket and are then trapped there for life
• The Chesapeake Bay used to have so many oysters that they filtered the entire bay's waters every three daysHighest possible recommendation, and available on Amazon for around $6.
• Four million pounds of bath sponges used to be taken from the Florida Keys every year, enough to remove five million trillion bacteria annually
• 100 million sharks are killed annually, mainly for their fins
• 20 million seahorses and pipefish are harvested annually for aquariums or Chinese medicine
• Nassau grouper spawning sites have been reduced from ten to three in recent years, with the number of "attendees" at each site dropping from 30,00 to less than 5,000
• Horseshoe crabs — a true living fossil — have been around for 200-350 million years…but could go extinct in the next 50
• In colonial times, 20-lb lobsters (compared to 4- or 5-lbs today) were regularly fed to orphans and prisoners; servants even had it written into their contracts that they couldn't be fed lobster more than twice a week
• Prehistoric Native Americans used to dine on oysters the size of dinner plates
• And finally, as terrible as global warming is, even worse is the ocean's increasing acidification — or "osteoporosis of the sea"
July 9, 2023
This book had been bought for my daughter. But as I discovered over past few days, it’s for all ages and everybody. It’s about the creatures who live in those parts of the world that has made ours a blue planet.
The Sea!
And what a beautiful, mysterious, dangerous and fascinating world it is.
The photographs are awesome. Brief information provided alongside are thoughtful, succinct, and lucid.
The dimensions of the book also give it the feel of an album, making it friendlier.
Highly recommended.
The Sea!
And what a beautiful, mysterious, dangerous and fascinating world it is.
The photographs are awesome. Brief information provided alongside are thoughtful, succinct, and lucid.
The dimensions of the book also give it the feel of an album, making it friendlier.
Highly recommended.
April 10, 2023
LOVED IT!! It was very interesting. I only had to renew it three times in order to finish bc I read 10 pages each night BUT IT IS DONE!!!
September 29, 2019
When I read 'The Universe Below' by William J. Broad, earlier this month, I fell in love with oceanography and marine life and went and got a few more books on these topics. 'Citizens of the Sea' by Nancy Knowlton was one of them.
'Citizens of the Sea' is based on the ten year Census of Marine Life research project which was a collaborative effort by scientists from across the world. The aim of the project was to study marine life in the ocean in different parts of the world, classify and document unique marine species, identify new species, attempt to take a census of marine life, and identify the challenges that marine animals face. Nancy Knowlton has used this research as the basis for this book.
The book is divided into many interesting sections. Each section in the book is focused on a particular theme. There are sections on how marine animals are discovered, identified and named, how appearances are important for them and how these evolved across time, how marine animals travel across the ocean, how they make friends and fight with enemies, how they find their partners, mate and raise their young ones, how humans are threatening their way of life now – these and other fascinating topics are explored in each section. As the book is published by National Geographic, the book is filled with stunning photographs in every page. They are so amazing and an absolute pleasure to look at. Many of my favourites were featured in the book – I was so happy to see the Coelacanth, which was thought extinct millions of years ago before it was rediscovered again, the Orange Roughy, which lives till the great age of 125 years and which was featured in a chapter aptly titled 'Methuselahs of the Deep', and the Fugu fish, which is famous in Japan. There were many amazing facts which were mentioned in the book. One of my favourites was about fishes like the blue-headed wrasse, anemone fish and the hamlet, which change their gender when it suits them, sometimes while mating, sometimes during parenting. I smiled when I read this sentence – "Paternity tests sometimes reveal that a father has become a mother" :) There are many amazing facts like this on every page.
I loved 'Citizens of the Sea'. It is a beautiful book filled with amazing facts and stunning photographs. It is a must read if you are an ocean / marine life enthusiast.
Have you read 'Citizens of the Sea'? What do you think about it?
'Citizens of the Sea' is based on the ten year Census of Marine Life research project which was a collaborative effort by scientists from across the world. The aim of the project was to study marine life in the ocean in different parts of the world, classify and document unique marine species, identify new species, attempt to take a census of marine life, and identify the challenges that marine animals face. Nancy Knowlton has used this research as the basis for this book.
The book is divided into many interesting sections. Each section in the book is focused on a particular theme. There are sections on how marine animals are discovered, identified and named, how appearances are important for them and how these evolved across time, how marine animals travel across the ocean, how they make friends and fight with enemies, how they find their partners, mate and raise their young ones, how humans are threatening their way of life now – these and other fascinating topics are explored in each section. As the book is published by National Geographic, the book is filled with stunning photographs in every page. They are so amazing and an absolute pleasure to look at. Many of my favourites were featured in the book – I was so happy to see the Coelacanth, which was thought extinct millions of years ago before it was rediscovered again, the Orange Roughy, which lives till the great age of 125 years and which was featured in a chapter aptly titled 'Methuselahs of the Deep', and the Fugu fish, which is famous in Japan. There were many amazing facts which were mentioned in the book. One of my favourites was about fishes like the blue-headed wrasse, anemone fish and the hamlet, which change their gender when it suits them, sometimes while mating, sometimes during parenting. I smiled when I read this sentence – "Paternity tests sometimes reveal that a father has become a mother" :) There are many amazing facts like this on every page.
I loved 'Citizens of the Sea'. It is a beautiful book filled with amazing facts and stunning photographs. It is a must read if you are an ocean / marine life enthusiast.
Have you read 'Citizens of the Sea'? What do you think about it?
April 14, 2012
I was so disappointed in this book I only got a handful of pages into it before I put it away. The text itself is fairly juvenile, written for people who have little knowledge of the sea or its inhabitants. But that's fine, there's a place for books like that even if they don't appeal to me. What really frustrated me was the poor quality of the photographs. For a book that has about 50% of its pages covered with photographs you'd expect those photos to be of high-quality, particularly when the book was published by National Geographic. But the photos herein do not live up to the spectacular image quality we've all come to expect from National Geographic; some aren't even in focus. It's a shame they published it.
March 8, 2021
Having enjoyed many years of scuba diving in the open seas, this book was irresistible. The diversity of the marine world is superbly captured with brilliant photography and detailed documentation. Our underwater world is truly otherworldly. The book enchants, amazes and delights.
March 11, 2021
This is a good book for everyone who has no extensive knowledge of marine animals yet and wants to change that. There are lots of colorful pictures and short, informative texts included, that give you interesting insights into the world below the ocean's surface.
Unfortunately, I personally have been reading about these things from a very young age, and this book did not hold any new information for me. in fact, I found the texts very superficial, and would have wished them to go on a bit longer and elaborate on many of the interesting points they mentioned, then dropped. It was a bit of a frustrating reading experience. Also, many of the pictures were not of a very good quality, some were grainy or out of focus. This is unusual especially for a National Geographic production, and unfortunately made me substract a point from my rating.
I recommend this book to everyone who is curious about marine life, but doesn't know where to start first. It gives a good overview over many ecosystems and species of plants and animals, as well as their different habits, and does a decent job of explaining elementary facts, peppered generously with funny and/or strange tidbits.
Also, maybe buy it in your motherlanguage: since it is a US-american published book, it does not use the metric system or the Celsius scale, and had me confused and left with no real idea of how big, hot, cold or far away the things described in it were several times.
Unfortunately, I personally have been reading about these things from a very young age, and this book did not hold any new information for me. in fact, I found the texts very superficial, and would have wished them to go on a bit longer and elaborate on many of the interesting points they mentioned, then dropped. It was a bit of a frustrating reading experience. Also, many of the pictures were not of a very good quality, some were grainy or out of focus. This is unusual especially for a National Geographic production, and unfortunately made me substract a point from my rating.
I recommend this book to everyone who is curious about marine life, but doesn't know where to start first. It gives a good overview over many ecosystems and species of plants and animals, as well as their different habits, and does a decent job of explaining elementary facts, peppered generously with funny and/or strange tidbits.
Also, maybe buy it in your motherlanguage: since it is a US-american published book, it does not use the metric system or the Celsius scale, and had me confused and left with no real idea of how big, hot, cold or far away the things described in it were several times.
June 4, 2019
It was a good introductory level entry into marine life. The target audience (imo) is the average person who is slightly interested in learning about the vast range of oceanic life.
I personally didn't learn anything new, so I would say that if you've gone into biology (either as an undergrad or as a pre-established interest in nonfiction reading) you likely won't walk away with any new information. However that being said, I enjoyed my couple of hours of reading and the photographs are stunning.
I personally didn't learn anything new, so I would say that if you've gone into biology (either as an undergrad or as a pre-established interest in nonfiction reading) you likely won't walk away with any new information. However that being said, I enjoyed my couple of hours of reading and the photographs are stunning.
July 1, 2024
This book was gifted to me by a friend a few years ago & I have finally finished reading it, which shows that you need to be a very dedicated person to read it in one sitting. Overall, it was still a great book with the most amazing facts and I would highly recommend this book to any ocean-lover or aspiring (or already) marine biologist.
Read
June 9, 2020A truly fantastic book with amazing images and pictures of varying marine life. Information in the book was accurate and written in a way that was easily understood. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the oceans and the marine organisms that live in our oceans.
October 31, 2019
Fantastic up close, crisp pictures of sea life with wonderful colors and textures. The accompanying text / facts are decent, though not as good as the pictures.
April 27, 2024
Solid introduction to ocean creatures, beautiful photography, maybe a nice start if you’re generally interested in the ocean, easy read
August 17, 2013
I really wanted to like this book, but the prose killed it. The Census of Marine Life is one of the most astounding scientific undertakings in recent history, yielding many new species, behaviors, and revealing how little we actually know (in other words, directions for future researchers to start digging :P) There's a lot of cool stuff you can mention from the last ten years.
The only problem I have is that it's written for a *very* general audience. I do understand that a large part of the Smithsonian's job is scientific outreach, but with short (less than a newspaper article)'s paragraphs on a subject and phrases such as "Anemonefish like Nemo will...", it almost feels like the audience is expected to be either a child or have merely a passing interest in the subjects. Hook them with something general, sure, but take the opportunity to present more information!
The pictures were great, but as always you can find larger and higher resolution images online (and in some cases, video- like the octopus that seemingly appears out of nowhere from a rock which can be seen here). Might be good for a budding marine biologist or to pique someone's interest in the sea.
The only problem I have is that it's written for a *very* general audience. I do understand that a large part of the Smithsonian's job is scientific outreach, but with short (less than a newspaper article)'s paragraphs on a subject and phrases such as "Anemonefish like Nemo will...", it almost feels like the audience is expected to be either a child or have merely a passing interest in the subjects. Hook them with something general, sure, but take the opportunity to present more information!
The pictures were great, but as always you can find larger and higher resolution images online (and in some cases, video- like the octopus that seemingly appears out of nowhere from a rock which can be seen here). Might be good for a budding marine biologist or to pique someone's interest in the sea.
July 13, 2015
My congratulations go out to the previous reviewers who damned the book after admitting not really reading much of it. Attention spans are apparently overated when it comes to objectively reviewing anything.
Sincere congratulations go out to the author and editors of this eye-catching gem in view of the fact that the dictum here was to take 10 solid years of research material (much of it dry and statistical) by multitudes of researchers with different backgrounds and interests in an extremely technical area and somehow prepare it for the average reader all in around 200 pages.
Sorry, but I read the whole book. I was never bored. I appreciated the photographs and artistic layout. Sometmes I felt the writing was a bit technical or obtuse.
If you are still reading this "review" then I recommend the book to you. You apparently have an attention span.
Sincere congratulations go out to the author and editors of this eye-catching gem in view of the fact that the dictum here was to take 10 solid years of research material (much of it dry and statistical) by multitudes of researchers with different backgrounds and interests in an extremely technical area and somehow prepare it for the average reader all in around 200 pages.
Sorry, but I read the whole book. I was never bored. I appreciated the photographs and artistic layout. Sometmes I felt the writing was a bit technical or obtuse.
If you are still reading this "review" then I recommend the book to you. You apparently have an attention span.
Read
October 30, 2015The astonishing diversity of ocean life will wow you in this riveting book, perfect for all ages, by marine scientist Nancy Knowlton. Citizens of the Sea reveals the most intriguing organisms in the ocean, captured in action by skilled underwater photographers from National Geographic and the Census of Marine Life.
The above is the summary provided by Goodreads.
The above is the summary provided by Goodreads.
June 22, 2013
Although I have only barely cracked the surface of this book, I am fascinated by the information contained within this volume. Like a great National Geographic documentary, there are numerous exotic creatures and spectacular photographs.
Want to read
October 9, 2010This was advertised in the October issue of National Geographic, it sound rather interesting and apart from that the sea is quite an interest of mine. I'm sure it will be enjoyable!
November 1, 2010
Fantastic pictures!
June 11, 2012
Wonderful pictures!
May 31, 2013
Written by a Smithie!
March 24, 2013
i got half way through it, i liked it at first but then it bored me.
Read
August 28, 2015591.77 K739 2010
April 29, 2016
Some photos are really fascinating and haven't been seen before, nice job!
June 28, 2016
I wrote a review: http://www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blo...
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews