BOOKS: Poseidon's Steed

Seahorses have strange sex lives! The males give birth. Hmm. Seahorses are strange horse shaped little fish that have fascinated humans for thousands of years. They are shy enigmatic creatures that practice their strange ways in dark places and are rarely seen. Yet they are the creator of myths. But what are they, a fish, a horse? Does anyone know? Take heart, that is if you care to know about what swims around on the bottom of the sea for seahorses swim there and recently marine biologist Helen Scales put on her scuba gear to take a closer look at what she calls the, “mighty steed.” The result of all her swimming around on the bottom? __a perfect little book called, “ Poseidon’s Steed The Story of Seahorses From Myth To Reality.” British author and journalist Simon Winchester called “Poseidon’s Steed,” small, delicate, elegant, charming, unusual, fascinating and uniquely memorable, a classic of its kind. In fact, now I come to think of it, Poseidon's Steed is itself a sort of seahorse of the book world." Does it live up to Winchester’s mighty praise? It does. This is one perfect little book. It won’t take you long to read, but you will come away immeasurably enriched. It’s the kind of book that takes one small fascinating creature in nature and shows just how wonderful, intricate and delicate nature can be. Scales shows that nature can create a rare and wondrous creature and how it is worth the time of humans to sit back take a look, to study and to appreciate. The thing that is most fascinating about the seahorse is how it moves through the water,. It has no fins. Scales says its motion is, “like glimpsing at a unicorn trotting through a garden." Somehow it manages to stay upright and glide through the water. Apparently it has a swim bladder that controls its buoyancy. But there is a sad aspect that enters into this book. The seahorse’s habitat is becoming endangered, mainly from commercial dredgers who scrap the bottom while trawling for shrimp. Ultimately, Scales book seems to be saying that the world is a better place just because we know that these delicate intricately carved little creatures are swimming around out there.