Sarah Preston Monks (1841–1926) was an American naturalist, educator, scientific illustrator, and poet, based for much of her career in San Pedro, California.

[9][10] Meanwhile, she worked on research projects in her own time, and in collaboration with the William Emerson Ritter's laboratory on Terminal Island.

[11] She collected specimens and published scientific and popular articles on turtles, lizards, salamanders, spiders, shipworms, and diatoms.

In her seventies, she consulted on topics including marine biology, entomology, botany, and geology from her cottage and garden in San Pedro.

"[2] Publications by Monks included the textbook Anatomy Physiology Hygiene (though she was not credited as author of this text, only as illustrator), "A Partial Biography of the Green Lizard" (The American Naturalist, 1881),[13] "Regeneration of the Body of a Starfish" (Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1903),[14] "Variability and Autotomy of Phataria" (Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 1904).