Octavia The Octopus

Much more than calamari Octavia The Octopus

To many people, a snail is a garlic soaked starter to a dinner in France, an oyster is an accompaniment to a glass of champagne, and an octopus an ingredient in calamari. These three creatures belong to numerically the second largest phylum in the animal kingdom, the molluscs, yet their only influence on human existence appears to be on a restaurant menu. This book seeks to correct this misconception. It shows, for example, that without the cowry (Cyprea), there might never have been the transatlantic slave trade, and but for the actions of Teredo navalis, Britain might now be a province of Spain. By taking such events and looking at them from the standpoint of a mollusc, it illustrates just how important that phylum has been in shaping human history, and that molluscs are much more than calamari.