The OctoPost: My Next Book, and Octopus (Sw)arms
I’m delighted to announce my next book, Tentacle Mysteries: Octopuses, Squid, and the Scientists Who Dig Up Their Secrets! It’s a nonfiction time-travel adventure in which you get to scuba dive with ancient cephalopods and meet the eccentric researchers who figured out their fossils. Coming in 2026 from Greystone Kids, this is a children’s book that I hope will appeal to all ages. And…
I’m going to illustrate it!
This is the first book I will both write and illustrate, and I’m super grateful to Greystone for the opportunity. I look forward to sharing art as soon as I can!
Erratum
Thanks to Christian Klug, cephalopod paleontologist, for pointing out that many argonauts are the cowgirls of the sea, not cowboys, as I wrote in the last newsletter. If you see an argonaut with a shell riding a jelly, she’s female!
Cephalopod News
Without bones or joints, octopus arms possess “nearly infinite degrees of freedom,” which creates a problem: when you can do anything, how do you decide what to do?
New research used observations of live octopuses (which was “almost like working with a little kid,” according to one scientist) to create a computer model of an octopus arm, then used the model to solve the problem with simple “muscle activation templates.” Groups of model muscles controlling two delightfully named topological quantities—writhe and twist—can create complex motions like those of real octopuses: coiling, grasping, retrieving. This will help engineers build a “cyberoctopus,” a robot that moves like an octopus.
Meanwhile, real live octopuses never stop surprising us with unexpected behavior. At the end of October, a swarm of two dozen rose to the sea surface near the Monterey wharf. Monterey Bay Whale Watch, who reported the event, guessed that the octopuses were looking for more oxygen, but this hypothesis hasn’t been tested yet.
My News
Did I mention that I’m working on a new book? Tentacle Mysteries? Scuba diving with ancient cephalopods? Great, just making sure.
Meanwhile, Nursery Earth has been getting some absolutely lovely attention.
"Prepare to be amused, horrified, and astonished by the gory details of development…Danna Staaf could be the person for whom the term 'infectious enthusiasm' was coined." Read the rest of Earth.org’s review, which Nursery Earth’s publicist called “one of the best reviews I’ve seen for any book I’ve worked on.“
Bioneers posted an excerpt titled, “The Bizarre Behavioral and Developmental Adaptations of Caterpillars,” and an author Q&A that I really had fun with. “Everybody likes to laugh, everybody likes a good story…and science is full of stories and jokes.”
Jialing Cai, who won 2023 Ocean Photographer of the Year with an incredible photo of an argonaut (cowgirl), wrote about Nursery Earth, “Your book expanded my understanding of marine invertebrates and connected it to the broader natural world…The unifying frameworks and theories you presented have deepened my appreciation for the universal wonder of developmental biology.”
If you’d like a copy of Nursery Earth for yourself or a gift, you can buy it from your favorite bookseller, or from my favorite bookseller, where you can add a note if you’d like it signed and personalized.
If you need a more cephalopod-focused gift, consider my other books!
Monarchs of the Sea: The Extraordinary 500-Million-Year History of Cephalopods
The Lives of Octopuses and Their Relatives: A Natural History of Cephalopods
Funny Pages
I polished up my squid size chart and put it on a black background. I’m not sure whether to make it into a t-shirt, sticker, poster, or card…what do you think?
I'd definitely buy a shirt with squid sizes on it!
Yay! Thanks for the feedback!