Sex sells sea shells

Like many a year seven student, Sheree Marris was taken to the seaside on a school excursion to be bored senseless by the dubious delights of rockpools.

While the vast majority of kids would either be running riot or torturing the teacher, young Sheree took a look into a pool and saw a strange little creature that took her fancy.

It was a nudibranch, a gloriously colourful sea slug that has a rather interesting private life. Not that she was aware of this at the time, but Marris, who has just had her fourth book published at the ripe old age of 30 (or thereabouts) had just embarked upon her life's quest.

This is to educate and entertain the public about the wonders of the nature in the most stimulating manner possible. And what better way than to poke around in the sex lives of sea creatures.

Her latest book, KamaSEAtra - Secrets of Sex in the Sea, is a light-hearted look at the goings on in the deep, illustrated by gorgeous photos, many provided for free by her friend Rudie Kuiter.

She has previously had published three more serious tomes, Australian Guide to Seashores, Australian Threatened and Endangered Species and Australian Guide to Whales and Dolphins, while working as an environmental educator with the Gould League and in between winning the Young Australian of the Year - Environment award in 2002.

"All through university and when I was researching these books, I was collecting little quirky facts about marine creatures, like how sea stars feed by pushing their stomach outside of their mouth and cone shells have a poisonous harpoon up their nose," Marris says.

"I loved those little facts and I loved teaching the kids about them. You have to try to engage them and I suppose that is where KamaSEAtra came about. For marine animals a lot of the time it is out of sight out of mind, so I thought let's make it a bit raunchy and sexy."

What better than to discuss the life of the ferociously ugly deep sea angler, the female of which secretes a perfume to attract a mate in the dark depths of the ocean?

"When he smells it he gets so excited that he swims over to her and rather than serenade her or gives her chocolates he just bites on to her and never lets go.

"Then he becomes fused to her skin and becomes nothing more than a blob of testicles. So he's the ultimate accessory really."

Marris says females do great things in the marine environment, like getting males to give birth and using males as their permanent sex slaves.

Some, like the female elephant seal, do let the side down somewhat, falling in love with the biggest and ugliest males and risking being crushed to death just so they can have the strongest offspring.

She has tried hard not to over-anthropomorphise the animals but is not afraid of making her prose a little debauched. If it educates and engages then it's worth it, she says.

KamaSEAtra is available now, just in time for a raunchy Christmas present. And next up will be KamaZOOstra - "it's going to be land-based," she says.

"I just have to do something on those hyaenas and their clitorises."

KamaSEAtra - Secrets of Sex in the Sea by Sheree Marris is published by Macmillan Australia (RRP$24.95).