Wave hello to new friends
It’s pop-science for adults. A new book, Superpowers on the Shore, looks at unusual life in intertidal pools: creatures that can go invisible, smash like the Hulk, even clone themselves
am aware that a forest lies at the periphery of our immediate consciousness. It just looks a little different from the forests that we are used to,” Sejal Mehta says, in her book, Superpowers on the Shore (May 2022; Penguin Random House India).
Mehta, a science communicator, is talking about the intertidal zone, the ever-shifting space along an ocean where the tide gushes in and out and where eccentric creatures live out their lives, some of them tinier than a fingernail. In her first pop science book for adults (she has previously written a series of wildlife-themed books for children), Mehta describes a world inhabited by creatures that could easily be the product of an active imagination. There are gender-fluid clownfish; flatworms that engage in penis wars; mantis shrimp that smash their prey like the Hulk might; sea anemones that clone themselves; and cephalopods such as octopi and squid that come sheathed in invisibility cloaks.
In this small world are also big achievers. The cone snail produces one of the deadliest venoms in the world; certain limpets’ teeth, composed of chitin and goethite (an ironbased mineral), are among the strongest naturally occurring materials known to mankind.
Mehta was introduced to the world of intertidal zones four years ago, when she attended a shore walk with the citizen-science group Marine Life of Mumbai (MLOM). This group has been documenting the vast array of marine species that live in Mumbai’s intertidal zones.
Mehta fell in love with this world. She’d spent almost two decades writing about lush forests and river systems for publications such as Lonely Planet and Nature infocus. Here was a multi-episode National Geographic-worthy documentary playing out right on her doorstep.
Mehta, 43, who lives in Mumbai and is now a member of MLOM too, says the idea of superpowers took root very quickly. “As we spoke about particular creatures, I would compare them with superheroes, or ninja assassins. I’d put them down with a special mention of their arsenals.”
Mehta has met most of the creatures featured in her book, which is divided into three broad sections. The first contains detailed descriptions of creatures and their special powers, under chapter titles such as Power of Invisibility (decorator crab, cephalopods), Power of Creation (squids, turtles), Assassins of the Intertidal (the cone snail, bobbit worm), and Defence Against the Dark Arts (Portuguese man o’ war, pufferfish).
A second section, presented as passages interspersed between the chapters, is a fictional narrative of life in the tidepools, from the point of view of the homely hermit crab (“the creature who is most relatable to us, because they are such strugglers,” laughs Mehta). The third is a series of application letters from various creatures, to the democratic people of the marine realm, asking for membership to the shore superhero team.
It’s an unusual approach, even for a work of pop science. But it succeeds in making this almost-alien world accessible to the reader, despite the necessary jargon that appears from time to time. It’s an easy read. But it wasn’t an easy book to write, she says. Sometimes a single sentence involved referring to multiple scientific papers. “The research was very challenging,” she says.
Superpowers on the Shore also contains illustrations of some of the creatures, drawn by visual science communicator Jessica Luis, who has worked on MLOM shore guides and on marine mammal identification charts in the past. Her background in marine ecology helped, as did her own past encounters with many of the creatures on the list, she says.
“We decided that the illustrations didn’t have to be entirely realistic, but had to offer a sense of the creatures’ worlds, and their unique powers and behaviours.” The illustrations focus on shapes and movement, and are all in black-and-white.
“Colour is one of the first things that strikes you when you see most marine creatures — the Portuguese man o’ war’s blue and purple, the glow of bioluminescence, bright green zoanthids, sea slugs in every possible hue, pink-striped porcelain crabs. The black-and-white, one hopes, will leads to an Aha! moment for readers who then get to meet these creatures in all their colourful glory,” Luis says.
But you don’t have to start with the intertidal pools or the book. There’s magic all around, Mehta says. “You can look at your window sill or the path you run on… I’ve come to realise that every living thing around me, even the spiders in my house, are creatures with superpowers. Some, I just don’t know about yet.”
MEHTA HAD WRITTEN, FOR DECADES, ABOUT FORESTS AND RIVERS. THE INTERTIDAL ZONES WERE LIKE A NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC-WORTHY DOCUMENTARY PLAYING OUT ON HER DOORSTEP