Poseidon's Steed: The Story of Seahorses, from Myth to Reality by Helen Scales

From the Publisher

Seahorses lead quiet lives, tucked away out of sight on the seafloor. It is rare to catch a glimpse of a seahorse in its natural habitat. But even if few have seen one live, these exotic, seemingly prehistoric creatures exist quite vividly in our imaginations and they have mesmerized scientists, artists, and storytellers throughout time with their otherworldly rarity.

Poseidon's Steed is a sweeping journey that takes us from the coral reefs and seagrass meadows of Indonesia where many seahorses makes their natural habitat to the back streets of Hong Kong where a thriving black market seahorse trade is concealed. Throughout history, seahorses have surfaced in some unexpected places and Scales also follows the seahorse back in time, from our most rudimentary seahorse imaginings six thousand years ago on cave walls in Australia, to the myths of ancient Greece.

Scientists have long puzzled over seahorses' unusual anatomy and their very strange sex lives. And male seahorses are the only males in the animal world that experience childbirth! Seahorses are not what scientists call a "keystone" species. They rely on a healthy ocean to survive, but the marine ecosystem does not rely on them. But their delicate beauty reminds us that we rely on the seas not only to fill our dinner plates, but also to feed our imaginations.

Margaret Rioux - Library Journal

This is a true natural history book, covering all aspects of the seahorse's involvement in the world: mythology, history, fisheries, aquaria, world ocean health. Scales is a marine biologist, and her fascination with her subject (she learned to scuba dive in order to observe this remarkable creature) shines through in her easy-to-read style and the way she uses the seahorse as a hook to discuss broader subjects, such as the role of seahorses in world mythology or the part they play in ocean conservation efforts, both as poster fish and canary species. VERDICT The cute seahorse on the cover and the clever title will help attract readers to a library display, and the text itself will make them want to read more. An extensive bibliography invites further exploration. This is sure to appeal to both teens and adult readers interested in the natural world.—Margaret Rioux, MBL/WHOI Lib., Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst., MA

Kirkus Reviews

A window into the life of an enticing marine animal "so strange and yet so perfectly pleasing."Humans have considered the seahorse something special for millennia, writes marine biologist and BBC radio host Scales in this fawning yet mostly professional investigation. Perhaps 6,000 years ago, Aborigines in Australia were painting them on their cave walls; Minoans were carving them onto their stone identification stamps 1,000 years later. Phoenicians and Egyptians put them on their sarcophagi. In Greek mythology, they were saddled by the Nereids, and they pulled Poseidon's golden chariot. Contemporary marine science has given us a glimpse into their unusual makeup. Elementally, " [s]eahorses look the way they do because it works," writes Scales. Despites the advances of DNA testing, "[n]ot only does a question mark hover where the seahorses first began, but we also don't know for sure when they evolved." Strangely, the author later writes, "though we no longer need puzzle over . . . where they came from." Scales occasionally overwrites-"Beneath a thousand-year of darkness hid a vast treasure trove, and unimaginable Aladdin's cave"-but her strong suit is biology. She effectively examines the seahorse's chameleon qualities, as well as the phenomenon of the males giving birth-the only such instance in the animal kingdom. The author is also adept at delineating the seahorse's alleged healing powers, and she offers a fascinating study in the history of aquariums and the pursuit of "queer fish." Scales then addresses seahorse farming-especially as it relates to their endangered status, caused mainly by trawling and fishing with explosives-and she argues strongly for their preservation. Thewriting is uneven, but the author makes a solid case for a rare and wondrous creature.

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