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Title details for The Lady and the Octopus by Danna Staaf - Available

The Lady and the Octopus

How Jeanne Villepreux-Power Invented Aquariums and Revolutionized Marine Biology

by Danna Staaf
ebook
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Born in a small village in eighteenth-century France, Jeanne Villepreux wasn't expected to transform marine science. Curious, creative, and clever, Jeanne ventured to Paris by foot as a teenager. After achieving acclaim as a seamstress, she met a wealthy merchant and traveled with him to Sicily, where they married. Rather than settling into a life of domesticity on this beautiful island, she set out to investigate its natural wonders, from fossils and insects on land to the marvelous mysteries of the sea. In an era when women weren't accepted into scientific societies and many naturalists based their findings on dead specimens, Jeanne fashioned her own fortune. She observed and experimented on living animals, in particular one very unusual shelled octopus called an argonaut. To keep argonauts and other sea creatures alive long enough to learn from them, she invented a device to hold them—the aquarium. With patience and persistence, she solved the two-thousand-year-old mystery of whether argonauts grow or steal their shells, and she made sure the scientific world knew about it. Author and octopus enthusiast Danna Staaf presents an engrossing look at the life and science of Jeanne Villepreux-Power, showing how this remarkable woman helped bring about a sea change in the study of marine life.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    October 4, 2022

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781728468488

    • PDF ebook

      • ISBN: 9781728460833
      • File size: 9979 KB
    Kindle restrictions

  • Languages

    • English

  • Levels

    • ATOS Level: 8.8
    • Lexile® Measure: 1220
    • Interest Level: 4-8(MG)
    • Text Difficulty: 7-8

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 24, 2022
      Staaf pays thorough tribute to Jeanne Villepreux-Power (1794–1871), credited with inventing the aquarium while researching sea life off Sicily’s coast. The French native combined a keen interest in the natural world with artistic and engineering skills—and freedoms afforded by wealth—to study sea creatures, primarily the argonaut octopus. “Jeanne’s overarching question: Is the argonaut a builder or a thief?” She settled the question—builder—while helping move her field forward by creating the aquarium to study aquatic animals in their natural environment. When recorded history is lacking, Staaf offers educated suppositions and provoking questions. Highly detailed, conversational chapters feature archival material, scientific drawings, and full-color photos in a handsome layout, and numerous contextualizing sidebars cover topics ranging from the ethics of animal experimentation to the metric system. Ample back matter concludes a comprehensive portrait of a trend-bucking innovator and polymath. Ages 10–up.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • PDF ebook
Kindle restrictions

subjects

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • ATOS Level:8.8
  • Lexile® Measure:1220
  • Interest Level:4-8(MG)
  • Text Difficulty:7-8

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