Author Interview: Planktonia’s Erich Hoyt
Cover of
Planktonia: The Nightly Migration of the Ocean's Smallest Creatures, Erich Hoyt, Firefly Books, 2022, 176 pages
We were honored to interview respected naturalist, conservationist, author, and researcher, Erich Hoyt about his newest book, Planktonia: The Nightly Migration of the Ocean’s Smallest Creatures. The interview appears in our Winter 2022-2023 issue and the extended version is available as a separate download. Visit our Downloads page to access both versions, free of charge.
(We’ve posted the first page of the interview below, but you’ll want to access the full interview here.)
Hoyt delivers a breathtaking collection of state-of-the-art blackwater photography, with work taken by photographers from around the world. If you love the sea, you’ll be dazzled by this work, including images from the Arctic Circle, Japan, Florida, Hawaii, Taiwan, and British Columbia. You’ll see translucent jellyfish, squid, octopus, eel, larva, sea angels, worms, anemones, and fish during the nightly vertical migration in the sea.
"The photographers live for their art, taking risks by diving at night in the open ocean with no reference points except the surface and the lights. They focus on a few small square cubic centimeters to compose a detailed, colorful image of a moving creature the size of a small ant or smaller,” wrote Hoyt.
Erich Hoyt is the award-winning author of 26 books, including children's books and scholarly works. He wrote the first book on whale watching and is currently Research Fellow with WDC, Whale and Dolphin Conservation and Director of Marine Mammals for marinebio.org. He lives in Dorset, United Kingdom.
For more information:
To see all the available books by Erich Hoyt, see erichhoyt.com.
For more information on all aspects of whales and dolphins and conservation work, visit whales.org.
For more about the project to identify marine mammal habitats around the world, to make sure that whales have places in the sea to live, feed, breed and raise their young, check out marinemammalhabitat.org, especially the e-Atlas.