What Fish Are Silent About. A Guide to the Life of Marine Creatures

The book by marine biologist Helen Scales is dedicated to the most ordinary and mysterious, well-known and in some ways completely unfamiliar beings — fish. Their fascinatingly interesting life takes place hidden from us, beneath the surface of the water, in the depths of the ocean, and thus it remains largely underestimated and misunderstood by us. 

The writer, being a diver, has spent hundreds of hours underwater observing the life of marine inhabitants, and now as a guide invites us on an exciting journey through seas and oceans, rivers of Europe and America, reefs and ocean depths.

We will swim with mantas and sharks, marvel at the cleverness of cleaner wrasses, and delight in the beauty and whimsical behaviors of various fish — from clownfish to piranhas and deep-sea anglerfish. We will also learn many new things about why deadly poisonous fish do not poison themselves, how fish in schools do not collide with each other, how they manage to avoid the jaws of swift predators, why they paint secret graffiti on their bodies (and who reads it), what sounds they produce, and how they have struck a deal with bacteria to glow and see in the dark. 

We will discover that fish are far from the primitive beings they have been thought to be — they can count, use tools, understand the laws of physics, solve complex logical problems, possess social intelligence, and are capable of cooperation. Fish demonstrate behaviors that were once thought to be characteristic only of humans and some primates with large brains.  

Within the pages of the book, we will also meet tireless scientists from the past and present who have devoted their lives to studying marine creatures, learn about the oldest fish, and how fish learned to live on land. This fascinating book, rich in a vast array of facts, will undoubtedly inspire readers to get to know these astonishing beings better and make them ponder that they are much smarter and lead infinitely more complex and interesting lives than is commonly thought.