SHORING UP THE SHORE

Sejal Mehta makes science fun and accessible in her book on creatures who live between land and sea

- Victor Shahed Smetacek

This book is about the lives and abilities of the little-known, small creatures that can be found, if looked for, in the intertidal: the stretch of ocean shore between the high and low tide levels. This boundary between the two realms of our planet-land and ocean rolls back and forth with the tides to the tune of the moon, as much a time-setter for the creatures living there, as is day and night for us. It is a very tiny strip of the planet but is and has been the threshold for organisms crossing from one realm to the other. The peculiarities of the organisms adapted to the intertidal are fascinating, because evolution has selected them for survival in both realms, which makes them closer to science fiction than to us.