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July 5 - July 9, 2023
I knew little about octopuses—not even that the scientifically correct plural is not octopi, as I had always believed (it turns out you can’t put a Latin ending—i—on a word derived from Greek, such as octopus). But what I did know intrigued me.
Scott first came to the aquarium as a baby in diapers on its opening day, June 20, 1969, and basically never left.
“There’s always an effort to minimize emotion and intelligence in other species,”
an octopus is put together completely differently, with three hearts, a brain that wraps around its throat, and a covering of slime instead of hair. Even their blood is a different color from ours; it’s blue, because copper, not iron, carries its oxygen.
Three fifths of octopuses’ neurons are not in the brain but in the arms.
Octopuses live fast and die young: Giant Pacific octopuses are probably among the longest-lived of the species, and they usually live only about three or four years.
The ability of the octopuses and their kin to camouflage themselves is unmatched in both speed and diversity.
the octopus eye and our own are strikingly similar. Both have lens-based focusing, with transparent corneas, irises that regulate light, and retinas in the back of the eye to convert light to neural signals that can be processed in the brain.
If the arm has suckers all the way to the tip, you have a female. If not, the appendage is referred to as the hectocotylized arm, and the animal is male.
We offer Kali our hands and arms, and she latches on with eager suckers. You can almost feel her interest in the strong grip of her suction, as if she is eagerly reading us by using an octopus Braille system. And she wants to see as well as taste us.
“Just about every animal,” Scott says—not just mammals and birds—“can learn, recognize individuals, and respond to empathy.”
From building shelters to shooting ink to changing color, the vulnerable octopus must be ready to outwit dozens of species of animals, some of which it pursues, others it must escape.
The ability to ascribe thoughts to others, thoughts that might differ from our own, is a sophisticated cognitive skill, known as “theory of mind.”
Learning, attention, memory, perception—these are all measurable, relatively accessible, amenable to study. But consciousness, says Australian philosopher David Chalmers, is “the hard problem,” precisely because it is so private to each inner self.
Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio briefly mentions anemones in his book on consciousness and emotion, The Feeling of What Happens. He does not argue that anemones possess consciousness; but, he writes, in their simple, brainless behaviors, we can see “the essence of joy and sadness, of approach and avoidance, of vulnerability and safety.”
From the Gulf of Siam to the murky waters of the Amazon, I have always felt confident I’d be fine if I obeyed Rule One of swimming, and that is: Don’t Try to Breathe Underwater.
Ha!
Everything in scuba is completely different from life on land, and also from previous experience swimming.
So true!
Nothing looks right: Objects seem closer and 25 percent bigger in the water.
Nothing sounds right: Sound travels four times faster in water than in air, and directionality is distorted.
the cold-shock response, a “series of reflexes that begin immediately upon sudden cooling of the skin following cold-water immersion.” During this reflexive response, “blood pressure, heart rate, and the workload of the heart all increase, making the heart more susceptible to life-threatening rhythms and heart attack.
I know what this feels like! Sometimes it feels as if my heart skips a beat!
“gasping begins, followed by rapid and deep breathing. These reflexes can quickly lead to accidental inhalation of water and drowning. This rapid and seemingly uncontrollable over-breathing creates a sensation of suffocation and contributes to feelings of panic.
Scary when you’re in deep water
But the fish should have been happy, because that day—the day I earned my certification—I was the one who was hooked.
Francisco is part Mayan, but he is also, I think, part fish. He slips through the water with the casual ease of a local showing us his neighborhood.
“performing the giant stride.” It sounds stately and accomplished, but doing it, even Jacques Cousteau looked like he’d just left Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks.
In a heartbeat, the diver is reborn, swallowed into another reality, transformed from a shambling monster into a being of weightless grace. Is this what happens to the spirit at death when it flies up to heaven?
I wonder……
we had lost the unfortunate fellow we dubbed the Pukey Guy, after he had earlier thrown up, not over the rail as you are supposed to, but on deck, inspiring others to do the same.
Tank-bound octopuses, at least, are known to have a dominant eye, and Byrne thinks this dominance might be transferred to the front limb nearest the favored eye.
But the bold versus shy arms could be something quite different.
“Octopus arms really are like separate creatures,”
But it’s peaceful to sit by him and have him bless me with his regard.
takes a special person to understand what it means to have a friend who’s an octopus,”
“She died like a great explorer,”
Kali had chosen to face unknown dangers in the quest to widen the horizons of her world.
Weighing 21 pounds and with an arm span of nearly ten feet, she had squeezed out of a hole that measured two and a half inches by one inch.
How does he feel about capturing animals in the wild and sending them to a life in captivity? He has no regrets. “They’re ambassadors from the wild,” he said. “Unless people know about and see these animals, there will be no stewardship for octopuses
But I understand the power of worship, and the importance of contemplating mystery—whether in a church or diving a coral reef.
It is no different from the mystery we pursue in all our relationships, in all our deepest wonderings. We seek to fathom the soul.
soul is our innermost being, the thing that gives us our senses, our intelligence, our emotions, our desires, our will, our personality, and identity. One calls soul “the indwelling consciousness that watches the mind come and go, that watches the world pass.”
am certain of one thing as I sit in my pew: If I have a soul—and I think I do—an octopus has a soul, too.
Her wet grip on my skin felt gentle and familiar, the pull of her suckers tender as a kiss.
Human tears of intense emotion are chemically distinct from tears produced by eye irritants; tears of both joy and sorrow contain prolactin, a hormone that peaks in men and women during sex, dreams, and seizures, and is associated in women with the synthesis of breast milk.
They have changed my life forever. I loved them, and will love them always, for they have given me a great gift: a deeper understanding of what it means to think, to feel, and to know.
Pretty profound
