About the Author

---

RAY TROLL is a world-renowned artist known for his scientificallyaccurate and often humorous artwork, inspired by field work and research inmarine science, paleontology, geology, ecology, and evolutionary biology. Ray'srenditions of everything from modern day salmon and marine mammals to bizarrecreatures of the prehistoric past have become iconic in fishing, scientific, and environmental activist communities around the world. His work, distributed from the Soho Coho Art Gallery in Ketchikan, Alaska, can be found on posters, hoodies, and millions of t-shirts sported byfisher folks, the occasional celebrity and many others. Ray's paintings andmixed-media drawings are in the collections of the Miami Museum of Science, the Burke Museum ofNatural History and Culture, Alaska Airlines, the Anchorage Museum, the AlaskaState Museum, and the Ketchikan Museum. His books include Sharkabet: a Sea ofSharks from A to Z and Crusisn' the Fossil Coastline and Cruisin the FossilFreeway with Dr. Kirk Johnson, now director of the Smithsonian National Museumof Natural History, for which he and Kirk were awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.He and Port Townsend writer Brad Matsen produced four popular books: ShockingFish Tales, Planet Ocean, Raptors, Fossil, Fins and Fangs and Rapture of theDeep. Ray's recent ventures include co-hosting the popular Paleo Nerd Podcast, featuring informativeand amusing interviews with leading paleontologists and scientists from aroundthe world. He is the recipient of a gold medal for distinction in the naturalhistory arts by the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, a RasmusonFoundation Distinguished artist award and also received the Alaska Governor'saward for the arts. Trollhas a ratfish species named for him and an extinct genus of extinctround-bellied herring named for him. He also plays icthyo-centirc rock n' roll music with his band theRatfish Wranglers.