Today I Learned …

We’ve all heard the stories about octopi slithering out of their tanks and escaping, or playing tricks on their keepers. There is a story in a treatise called The Nature of Animals, written by the Roman author Claudius Aelianus (175-235 AD). He claims that a giant octopus would sneak into a town through the sewers on many occasions to steal pickled fish from unsuspecting merchants.