The Book of Vanishing Species

"If you were to take a teaspoon of water from the ocean and look at it under a microscope, you would see many shapes -- possibly millions, mostly translucent -- of varying sizes and colours. Little spheres, tubular bodies with drooping tendrils, circles within squares, squares within circles; triangles, rectangles; spiralling helixes, some bristly, some hooked, some frilled; oval wreaths, concertinas, braided zigzags; antennae emerging from cone-shaped bodies; umbrellas, crossbows, sickles, bells, fans; barrels trailing thin, wispy veils behind them; hexagonal prisms like jewels; darting arrows and little suns. You could be forgiven for thinking that instead of a microscope, you were looking through a telescope, and instead of water, you were gazing into the sky - at galaxies, spaceships and planets with alien creatures - yet plankton are very much a part of this world. We depend on them.We depend on them." The following is an excerpt from The Book of Vanishing Species: Illustrated Lives by Beatrice Forshall...

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