Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness
    The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness
    The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness
    Ebook341 pages5 hours

    The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness

    By Sy Montgomery

    4.5/5

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction * New York Times Bestseller * A Huffington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of the Year * One of the Best Books of the Month on Goodreads * Library Journal Best Sci-Tech Book of the Year * An American Library Association Notable Book of the Year

    “Sy Montgomery’s The Soul of an Octopus does for the creature what Helen Macdonald’s H Is for Hawk did for raptors.” —New Statesman, UK

    “One of the best science books of the year.” —Science Friday, NPR

    Another New York Times bestseller from the author of The Good Good Pig, this “fascinating…touching…informative…entertaining” (The Daily Beast) book explores the emotional and physical world of the octopus—a surprisingly complex, intelligent, and spirited creature—and the remarkable connections it makes with humans.

    In pursuit of the wild, solitary, predatory octopus, popular naturalist Sy Montgomery has practiced true immersion journalism. From New England aquarium tanks to the reefs of French Polynesia and the Gulf of Mexico, she has befriended octopuses with strikingly different personalities—gentle Athena, assertive Octavia, curious Kali, and joyful Karma. Each creature shows her cleverness in myriad ways: escaping enclosures like an orangutan; jetting water to bounce balls; and endlessly tricking companions with multiple “sleights of hand” to get food.

    Scientists have only recently accepted the intelligence of dogs, birds, and chimpanzees but now are watching octopuses solve problems and are trying to decipher the meaning of the animal’s color-changing techniques. With her “joyful passion for these intelligent and fascinating creatures” (Library Journal Editors’ Spring Pick), Montgomery chronicles the growing appreciation of this mollusk as she tells a unique love story. By turns funny, entertaining, touching, and profound, The Soul of an Octopus reveals what octopuses can teach us about the meeting of two very different minds.

    Editor's Note

    Intriguing and inspiring…

    No one intrigues or inspires quite as much as author, naturalist, and animal-lover Montgomery. “The Soul of an Octopus” is an education on — and a love letter to — one of the most clever and emotionally intelligent animals in the sea. As in all of her books, Montgomery isn’t afraid to dive in and get her hands dirty, exploring alongside the octopuses while showing the utmost respect.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAtria Books
    Release dateJul 12, 2016
    ISBN9781501161148
    Author

    Sy Montgomery

    In addition to researching films, articles, and thirty-six books, National Book Award finalist Sy Montgomery has been honored with a Sibert Medal, two Science Book and Film Prizes from the National Association for the Advancement of Science, three honorary degrees, and many other awards. She lives in Hancock, New Hampshire, with her husband, Howard Mansfield, and their border collie, Thurber.

    Read more from Sy Montgomery

    Related to The Soul of an Octopus

    Related ebooks

    Biology For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      What Made Early Humans Smart

      Jun 30, 2021

      Talking to Jeremy DeSilva about human evolution was so fun. As was reading his recent book, First Steps: How Upright Walking Made Us Human. I learned something new and fascinating on every page. Do you picture our hominin ancestors as hunters? I did.

      12 min read

    • Article

      Plants Feel Pain and Might Even See

      Jul 21, 2021

      In 2018, a German newspaper asked me if I would be interested in having a conversation with the philosopher Emanuele Coccia, who had just written a book about plants, Die Wurzeln der Welt (published in English as The Life of Plants). I was happy to s

      10 min read

    • Article

      30 Books in 30 Days: Lab Girl

      Mar 13, 2017

      In the 30 Books in 30 Days series  leading up to the March 16 announcement of the 2016 National Book Critics Circle award winners, NBCC board members review the thirty finalists. Today, NBCC board member Michele Filgate offers an appreciation of auto

      2 min read

    • Article

      Biophilia

      May 6, 2020

      Biophilia
      4 min read

    • Article

      Hey, Suckers

      Jul 14, 2023

      Hey, Suckers
      3 min read

    • Article

      When Mollusks Fall in Love

      Nov 16, 2017

      Outside of gothic works of fiction set in Transylvania, we rarely read of enduring friendships that have been initiated by a bite. But that is exactly how nature writers Sy Montgomery and Elizabeth Marshall Thomas—the two extraordinary, quirky, and i

      9 min read

    • Article

      For The Birds

      May 28, 2021

      For The Birds
      5 min read

    • Article

      Opinion: What Using Animals For Scientific Research Taught Me About Myself

      Mar 11, 2019

      When I looked for the deeper meaning of existence, I found that I was too skeptical for heaven and hell, for deities and spirits. I found it in a research…

      7 min read

    • Article

      Welcome To Octo-world

      May 8, 2023

      Welcome To Octo-world
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Age of the Entangled Self

      May 27, 2022

      The Age of the Entangled Self
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Whale Who Will Come Soon

      Sep 8, 2021

      The beachfront narrows to an ocherous ribbon, belted by blue, above and below. After a while, a handful of shearwaters appear in the air above the Cat Balou. The birds flash around us; like knife-thrower tricks at a circus. Diving through the water,

      8 min read

    • Article

      The Octopus

      Oct 30, 2020

      The Octopus
      4 min read

    • Article

      My Cpuntry Childhood

      Mar 30, 2022

      My Cpuntry Childhood
      7 min read

    • Article

      Bodies of Knowledge

      Aug 27, 2021

      Bodies of Knowledge
      19 min read

    • Article

      Pestilence Domestica

      Apr 21, 2023

      I was brushing my teeth the other night when I noticed a silverfish in the bath. He (or she) was running around the bottom, trying to scale the slippery sides. Frantic. Despairingly, even - who knows what emotions a silverfish harbours… But its effor

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Soul of an Octopus

    4.5/5

    141 ratings63 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      I am fascinated by octopuses, so it was with great excitement and anticipation that I got my hands on this book. While I wasn't disappointed, neither was I as thrilled as I thought I would be. In the parts where the author focused on octopus behavior, it was riveting. But the author tended to digress and talk about when she was learning to scuba dive and some such things. I didn't want to know about the author's life; I wanted to know about the animals!Also, the book jumped around from the Boston Aquarium to the Seattle Aquarium to wherever the author traveled. This made the narrative a bit disjointed, as, for example, the Boston story line would get disrupted in order to bring in a Seattle story line, and then we'd go back to the Boston story line. I would have preferred if the book simply had a single setting and a more focused approach.Nonetheless, the book is a fascinating peek into the world of octopuses -- and, to a certain extent, other marine life as well.
    • 4/5
      I picked up this book because one of my goodreads friends had read it and her review made it sound very interesting. I wasn't disappointed. This was a fascinating book.

      I don't read much nonfiction. Maybe I worry that it will be too technical and dry. This book was definitely not like that. I was interested from the start, and excited to keep reading to find out what was going to happen.

      The author volunteers at a large, public aquarium. She takes a special interest in the octopuses, and is offered an amazing opportunity to become close to them. Over the course of the book, a few octopuses come and go at the aquarium, and each of them has their own unique personality. The author really makes you feel for the octopuses, and I know if I ever see one in person, I will have a great appreciation for it.
    • 4/5
      Could have been a 5 star book but the photos were dire. I had no idea how clever/cunning octopusses are, nor what a short life-time they have. This book made me really think about how much/little we know about many creatures on the planet we share, how they live, 'think', react and how they behave when they interact with us - the dominant species. The oceans hold many such mysteries.
    • 4/5
      One of the standard criticisms of science fiction stories of an "alien encounter" variety is that the aliens are not alien enough. Rather, they are just mutated variations of homo sapiens in their perceptions of reality, their emotional lives and motivations, and in some cases even appearance.

      The Soul of an Octopus is not a science fiction book. Yet it focuses on a creature that is perhaps one of the most alien in contrast to humanity that one can imagine. It lives in the water. It is highly intelligent, an ace escape-artist that can often outwit its keepers. It possesses such a complex nervous system that there are more neurons contained in its (eight) arms than it has in its brain. It smells and tastes through its skin. It has an extraordinary ability to "shape-shift" through camouflage and varying the texture of its skin. It has three hearts. And its blood runs blue.

      Yet here are some other characteristics of the octopus: it can bond with humans, sometimes being quite "affectionate" (though not indiscriminately--it can react to people it doesn't like, as well); if it finds itself with more food than it itself can eat, it has been observed to share its bounty with other creatures beyond its species; and it apparently likes to watch television (come to think of it, maybe it's not that intelligent after all).

      I found it absolutely fascinating to learn all these things about octopuses from Sy Montgomery--and "octopuses" is the proper plural, as Montgomery also explains. From the book's title, however, I expected something of a more Annie Dillard-esque meditation, riffing on the concept of consciousness and what it might mean from an octopan point-of-view--e.g., how might an octopus understand its environment and, say, its encounters with warm-blooded, air-breathing humans, when most of its sensory input is coming through its eight, independent appendages. The first couple of chapters give the impression that this is indeed the approach Montgomery intends to take, but then the book moves more into giving Montgomery's own personal context for her octopal interactions than it sometimes is about the octopuses themselves (so that the book could have as easily been entitled, "My Adventures With Octopuses," than "The Soul of an Octopus")

      I would have liked to have had Montgomery help me ponder more the idea of "octopus-consciousness," as well as other sea creatures--she points out, for instance, that while the embryo of a sea star begins with a brain, as it develops, those neurons migrate to a complex neutral network around the mouth. What is the consciousness of a sea star like? But once Montgomery raises the thought, she passes on. I still enjoyed the book. And how it made me realize I myself now have a love for octopuses! But it also could have been more.

      And the next time a science fiction writer wants to create a alien creature, s/he should just consider the octopus. If they can invent something as least as alien as that, they've got it made.
    • 3/5
      The first thing we learn about the octopus is that according to the author the plural is octopuses. (Miriam Webster, however, lists that and octopi are acceptable). It might just be me but starting with an incorrect fact is maybe not the best way to make friends with the reader.Octopi are fascinating creatures. They have amazing abilities to camouflage themselves using color and texture and can fit through amazingly small openings. They are curious and even exhibit friendliness. They can appear to be shy or aggressive and aquarium owners have discovered they are adept at opening their tanks and escaping. What this book is not subtitled is "A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Octopi Lovers" however, and I found myself annoyed at the constant intrusion of the author's feelings and comments about the amazing trips around the world to observe octopi and other animals. The only interpersonal relationship I found intriguing was the contact between the octopus and the autistic girl.
    • 4/5
      Sy Montgomery's enlightening and surprisingly tender study of octopuses could do for captive cephalopods what Temple Grandin's writings are doing for cows. An educational (the segments on anatomy and camouflage capabilities are fascinating!) and endearing read about one of our planet's most illusive--and often feared--creatures.
    • 3/5
      Octopuses, and the author explains why the plural is “octopuses,” and not “octopi,” are intelligent, curious, and creative. So I was saddened when I learned that behind the scenes, “they lived in tanks or barrels that were completely barren, no hiding places, no rocks or sand or tankmates.” And I was rather appalled that the author seemed to think this was okay. I was saddened that a supposedly loved octopus spent her last days caring tenderly for her eggs that would never hatch because they were infertile because she was a freaking captive, stolen from the ocean and kept in her watery cage. There was even the sentence about one of the octopi, “She seems desperate to get out.”The author had considerable angst when she had trouble scuba diving because of her ears, wanting to experience in the wild what these captive animals were denied. I was not sympathetic towards the author's angst.I expected more about octopuses in the wild. I didn't expect zoo-like aquariums, shipping animals cross country and across the world and hoping they survived. I didn't expect severing the nerves of an octopus's arms to see what would happen.I hated that a sick octopus was give to eat a live crab with its claws removed for easier eating. This book showed the author's attachment to some animals, but little empathy.This unabridged audio book was read by the author, who was often quite excitable verging on hysterical. I didn't enjoy the narration.
    • 4/5
      Wonderful book with a few small problems... The subtitle is grossly off - not much "exploration". And she mentions Apollo 14's astronaut Edgar Mitchell's Institute of Noetic Sciences wihout qualifying it as nonsensical bunk. Plus, she asks, unbelievably, if animals, like humans, have "free will". I'll forgive that very stupid question ... very stupid ... for her delightful conversational writing style and her love affair with octopuses. Forays into the bizarre and inane are misplaced here, and are mercifully few.

      Do problem solving, emotions, likes and dislikes, curiosity ... constitute evidence of intelligence? Even more, if all displayed in a non-human species? Clearly evolved on a radically diffeent path, octopuses nevertheless demonstrate intelligence.

      And that is amazing.
    • 5/5
      I think probably just about every person who came in contact with me while I was reading this book, and for weeks after, heard about it from me. That's how much it affected me!This book follows the author's experiences with the New England Aquarium and her time getting to know octopuses, both wild and tame. As the title would indicate, the book showcases the octopus, with its intelligence and complexity and depth. However it also includes many of the other inhabitants of the aquarium, like starfish, anemones, lobster and fish of many varieties.The author first wrote about the octopus Athena in her piece “Deep Intellect” in Orion magazine in 2011, and this book introduces us not only to Athena, but also to Octavia, Kali and Karma, and their various personalities.Octopus are viewed as frightening enigmas, or even as ugly and disgusting creatures, but the author helps the reader to see their beauty. At one point, she writes of a time that she was standing with the aquarium’s other visitors and observing the octopus Octavia. Some teenage girls were disparaging the aging octopus absorbed in the care of her eggs, and the author engaged the girls through education about Octavia’s anatomy and behavior, but then there was a moment that the girls could identify with, and eventually the girls’ attitudes toward Octavia turned around."They don’t want to hear how Octavia is different from us. They want to know how we’re the same."My final word: The author successfully shows that octopuses are so much more than what we typically think. Their behavior is sometimes reminiscent of a pet dog, seeking human interaction and their tactile natures touching and tasting their human companions. The author succeeded in affecting me, and not only making me recommit to never eating octopus or their cousin the squid, but it made me begin to doubt my ability to continue to eat seafood at all. The consciousness of even fish like grouper is phenomenal and at times unsettling. Tender and amusing stories of starfish and anemones had me shaking my head in amazement. I adored this book, and it left me yearning to make the acquaintance of an octopus, envious of others who have been so blessed.
    • 5/5
      Science writer Sy Montgomery develops a relationship with the New England Aquarium in order to study the intelligence of one of the most mysterious animals on Earth - the octopus. She interacts with several different octopuses at the aquarium, and goes on scuba diving trips to try to find octopuses in the wild. She learns how smart they are, and how they have distinct personalities, and how they relate and compare to the other animals in the aquarium. There are so many things to think about regarding octopuses. How did they get so smart when they are almost entirely solitary? Do they have one central decision-making brain, or does each arm (filled with far more neurons than their head) act independently? What do they think about humans? Any story about octopuses is also a story about death. Despite their mind-boggling intelligence, even the longest-lived octopuses only live about 5 years. How does losing such an intelligent and charismatic animal affect the people who care for them every day? Before they die, most octopuses go senile. Are they aware of what's happening to them? How would octopuses compare to humans if they had similar lifespans?As a zoo volunteer myself, I was a little annoyed at the level of access Montgomery was afforded. Not just to the octopus themselves but also to hardworking aquarium employees and octopus experts. The employees and many of the volunteers mentioned in the book work full time and have been at the aquarium for ages, but Montgomery just waltzes in every Wednesday morning to pet the octopus and pick the brain of the experts. This is a light and readable book mixing science, philosophy, and lovable characters. And the humans are good too.
    • 5/5
      I would probably not have given this book a second glance except that just days before it was offered to me for review I had read Turtle Reef, an Australian contemporary romance novel, in which the heroine, working at a marine park, befriended an octopus. I was intrigued by the relationship and was delighted by the opportunity to learn more.The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness, is written by Sy Montgomery, an author, naturalist, documentary scriptwriter, and radio commentator. It offers a very readable and rather unique blend of personal experience, scientific knowledge and philosophical opinion about what is understood, and unknown, about the nature of octopuses.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. Here is an animal with venom like a snake, a beak like a parrot, and ink like an old-fashioned pen. It can weigh as much as a man and stretch as long as a car, yet it can pour its baggy, boneless body through an opening the size of an orange. It can change color and shape. It can taste with its skin. Most fascinating of all, I had read that octopuses are smart."What Montogomery is able to show in The Soul of an Octopus is that octopuses are complex creatures who exhibit personality, intelligence and emotion, despite having neural systems completely alien to our own. During her time spent at the New England Aquarium she befriended several individual octopuses including Athena, who was the subject of a popular 2011 Orion magazine piece, "Deep Intellect" which went viral and was the inspiration for this book, Octavia, Kali and Karma. Through her study of, and interaction with, these extraordinary creatures she shares what she learns from both science and her experiences, while musing on the mystery of the 'inner lives' of the octopus, who grow from the size of a grain of rice and live for, on average, just four short years.The Soul of an Octopus is as smart, playful, curious and surprising as the creature it features. A fascinating read I'd highly recommend.
    • 5/5
      I became enchanted with octopuses during this book. Never realized how intelligent, sensitive and friendly these animals are. Would love to feel an octopuses arms around mine, alas not to be. Sy Montgomery did an excellent job in imparting the unique and wonderful characteristics of an octopus. I would have liked more information about other species of octopus, perhaps that's for another book or my own internet research. I'm just thrilled I was able to spend time, although vicariously, with Athena, Octavia and Karma as well as with the employees and volunteers of the New England Aquarium. I visited a local aquarium prior to reading The Soul of an Octopus where fortunately there was an octopus and was amazed at its peculiar and remarkable shape. Now I have to go back with the knowledge that the octopus is also extremely smart and clever. I appreciate the knowledge gleaned from this book
    • 4/5
      Absolutely fascinating account of human interactions with octopuses. Each one has a distinctive personality - peaceful, curious, friendly, aloof. Sy Montgomery, as always, does an excellent job of sharing her love and knowledge of animals with her readers.
    • 4/5
      What a great book, I learned so much about octopuses I hadn't known before. Loved that the book wasn't purely scientific but also emotional as well. Who knew I could cry so much over the death of octopuses I hadn't even met.
    • 5/5
      Where do I begin with this? Well, first off to chide myself on not having read enough Sy Montgomery books. She’s one of my favorite authors so what’s my problem?*****I’d been looking forward to this book since I first heard about it last year. Sy Montgomery has written some excellent books and pieces on animals and the natural world – one of which was in Orion Magazine a few years ago: Deep Intellect. This piece chronicled her experiences with a particular octopus and touched upon their intelligence. Orion Magazine even hosted a chat on the subject shortly after the article was published – probably because it proved to be so popular!This book is basically an extension of that article – Montgomery meets more octopuses, both in aquariums and in the wild. She explores their world, taking the reader on both a scientific, but largely philosophical journey through the octopus’ intellect and on the concept of their consciousness, if such a thing exists.A large part of the book is spent at the New England Aquarium in Boston, where Montgomery meets and gets to know a few octopuses as well as their keepers, and other employees and volunteers. She even gets to know some of the other animals there and explores a bit of their worlds as well. For example, on a sea star that shared a tank with one of the octopuses: I wonder: Can a brainless animal feel curiosity? Does it want to play? Or does it only "want" toys or food the way a plant "wants" the sun? Does a sea star experience consciousness? If it does, what does consciousness feel like to a sea star? (p20)The concept of animals being smart is fairly new to science. Just a decade or two ago, it was unfathomable to most people. And the idea of a “lower” group of animals like octopuses displaying intelligence? Crazy talk! But over time, the idea has become more accepted and it’s hard to imagine a world in which it wasn’t.There are some amazing videos on YouTube and elsewhere, showing the things octopuses are capable of doing. But the thing that strikes me is how different an octopus is compared to us. They have three hearts! They have multiple brains! They can sense and taste with their tentacles! They can change into a kaleidoscope of colors, while being color blind (or having monochromatic vision – I need to learn more about this)! They have eight arms! So what does that mean for our understanding of their world, much less their intellect? Assessing the mind of a creature this alien demands that we be extraordinarily flexible in our own thinking. Marine biologist James Wood suggests our hubris gets in our way. (p50)And what else is out there that we haven’t even explored, thought about, considered in a different way? "So if an octopus is this smart," Steve asked Bill, "what other animals are out there that could be this smart—that we don't think of as being sentient and having personality and memories and all these things?" (p48)Beyond smarts, what about personality? It’s quite clear that many people who have pets that they have personalities. They’re not automatons that respond in the same way to stimuli. And that’s the case not only for octopus, but for so many other animals that people are lucky enough to get close to, whether in the wild or elsewhere. Montgomery talks about some of these stories as well, as she explores the world of the octopus.But what I like the most is that through her writing, you feel like you are there with her, hanging out with octopuses and getting to know them. At the end of the book, when one of the octopuses Montgomery got to know very well was close to death, Montgomery felt it as if she were losing a friend – which she was. And I felt it too. I read that particular section with tears in my eyes, as if I, too, were losing a friend.Now I’m on a quest of my own to try to get to know an octopus too – or at least see one in the wild. Just getting a tiny taste of their world would be such an amazing experience, and such a great way to bring all the feelings in this book to life.
    • 4/5
      The Soul of an Octopus explores consciousness and achieves that anecdotally by observing how octopuses behave with intelligence. The sub-text is about loss and death, a theme Montgomery has covered before in other books. Montgomery's writing is a Young Adult version of nature writing, a sort of middle-brow suitable for the budding high school scientist. It's a mix of personal experiences, facts about the octopus and various character studies of people who work at the Boston Aquarium.
    • 5/5
      This is a fascinating book and perfect for readers who don't usually pick up non-fiction to read for enjoyment. There is a wealth of information about octopuses and great descriptions about interacting with them as individuals. Who knew that they are intelligent, playful creatures with unique personalities? A great read.
    • 5/5
      The Good Good Pig, and now this---Sy Montgomery takes you with you in so many ways---wonderful, wonderful writing----and SO many things I did not know about creatures out there in the huge watery spaces of ocean---or in more close circumstances--the aquariums she visited and where she became close friends with octopuses....and people. Should not be missed!!!
    • 5/5
      There is a plethora of good information on octopuses and other sea life in this book. Several years ago, I had the opportunity to visit the New England Aquarium. It was fun to read a lot about this wonderful place. I did find myself wishing there was less discussion and drama on souls and consciousness, and more science. However, this is still a worthwhile read.
    • 5/5
      I really loved this book. I learned things on the first page (The plural is Octopuses not Octopii) and this learning continued throughout. The major theme is just how intelligent and resourceful that they are. They can solve complex puzzles and escape from almost any tank with their Houdini like flexibility. Also, I learned about their capacity to develop relationships with their caretakers. If you are in any way interested in wildlife and ecology you simply must read this book.
    • 5/5
      I surprised myself by how much pleasure I found in this book. The author feeds the reader so much incredible information about these geniuses of the ocean that she'll want to just meet one face-to-face, armed with all her new knowledge and appreciation. In addition to cephalopod facts, she also introduces us to the octopus tenders and lovers at the NE Aquarium in Boston, to the fish and turtles, to the life brimming within and behind the Giant Ocean Tank. Ms. Montgomery learns to scuba dive, despite painful ear problems, and some of the finest parts of the book are her encounters with octopuses in the wild. This is an unexpected joy of a read.
    • 4/5
      The New York Times has called naturalist Sy Montgomery “equal parts poet and scientist” and the Boston Globe says she’s “part Indiana Jones and part Emily Dickinson.” Maybe, with all those parts, it’s fitting that this 2015 book—National Book Award finalist The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness—is also about a creature with many parts.If we really understood how wondrous octopuses are, we wouldn’t eat them. (Their remarkable nature, by the way, extends to the genetic level.)The first thing that’s hard to grasp about octopusus is that almost two-thirds of their neurons are not in their brains, but in their arms. In one early encounter with the octopus Athena, Montgomery says, “Unconstrained by joints, her arms were constantly questing, coiling, stretching, reaching, unfurling, all in different directions at once. Each arm seemed like a separate creature, with a mind of its own. In fact, this is almost literally true.” She speculates that this “distributed intelligence” enables the octopus to multitask. It reduces the burden on the brain to coordinate all those arms, which can change color and surface texture in an instant, camouflaging themselves from predators or potential prey and indicating mood, from calm to distress to happy red. The arms, she says, “learn, think, decide, and remember—while at the same time processing the flood of taste and touch information pouring in from every inch of skin.” That the information they receive by touch is remembered is evident from another powerful theme of Montgomery’s book. Octopuses are not just smart—as she demonstrates in describing their many tricks—they have something akin to an emotional life, evidenced by their relationships with the people around them. (No, they’re not just food-seeking.)They can recognize individual people and other animals because of their extraordinary senses. An octopus’s chemoreceptors can detect another’s “scent” from at least thirty yards away, and research suggests their suckers are a hundred times more sensitive than the chemical receptors on your own tongue. At Boston’s New England Aquarium where Montgomery interacted with several octopuses over a period of years, one—Octavia—was very friendly. As Octavia’s life was coming to a close, she laid thousands of eggs, which she obsessively guarded night and day. For many months Montgomery and the caretakers had no physical contact with her. When she was weakening fast, they moved her to a simpler environment without her eggs. Freed from that duty, Octavia’s behavior made it clear she remembered her friends, embracing them as before.Read this book and marvel!
    • 4/5
      This was a binge read that took over an entire day. I have a strong fascination and love for cephalopods and picked up this book thinking it was a deep scientific study. Instead, I got a quite charming story of an animal lover interacting and studying octopuses herself.I have my issues with the book. The long dragged out portions of her learning to scuba dive (I personally found them unnecessary, but I know some enjoyed them) and the questionable treatment of a couple of the octopuses to name a few. However, I found the entire story informative and enjoyable. It made me jealous that the author got to spend so much personal time with the creatures and truly bonded with them. I don't wish to say too much more because I don't want to spoil the experience for others, but please if you have an interest in octopuses I highly suggest reading this book.
    • 2/5
      First 19 pages were great; very entertaining. The remaining 300 + pages were more of the same.
    • 1/5
      very disturbing. Not even a moment of guilt over placing an intelligent creature in captivity. It sounds like the author considered the octopus to have been lucky to have met such a wonderful person as her.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book, however, I felt it was misrepresented in the title, it doesn't delve into much of the intelligence, or cognitive behaviors of the octopus, or people in relation. There's not a lot of science in this book, it's more of an observational diary, which is fine, and I did learn some things, just not what I had hoped to see.
    • 4/5
      More sentimental and anecdotal than scientific, Montgomery's tale of establishing relationships with mollusks may have you feeling warm and shedding salty tears for these cold-blooded invertebrates, as well as raising questions about aquarium practices.
    • 5/5
      This was a lovely book—both fascinating and deeply kind, with a lot to interest a broad swath of readers. The science is accessible without being dumb, and at the same time Montgomery brings the octopuses (NOT octopi!) and their personalities (yes, they have 'em) really vividly to life. Plus I love reading about any interest that attracts the oddballs among us, and octopuses definitely seem to fall into that category—I guess I can count myself among those oddballs now. Thus ends any pulpo consumption for me ever again, and no big loss.
    • 2/5
      I was really disappointed with this book, which is mostly because I wanted it to be something other than what it is. I was hoping for a work of popular science that covers a lot of information about octopuses, hopefully with some details about scientific studies they have done to learn this information. Instead, this is a book about the author's personal fascination with octopuses, especially the ones she was allowed to visit regularly at an aquarium. The scientific information about octopuses probably only takes up 20 or so pages, with another 30-40 pages full of various anecdotes about octopus behavior. The rest of the book is about the people who work at the aquarium and their relationship with the aquarium's octopuses, and about the author's own fascination with them. I really wasn't interested in the chapters about the author's scuba diving lessons, or life stories of the aquarium volunteers, or the reactions of aquarium visitors. What little bit of information there is about octopuses is really fascinating, so I hope that I can find more information elsewhere.
    • 1/5
      Okay, this book may have suffered from my assumptions. I was expecting a book about the minds and mental processes of sea creatures, albeit told in a memoir style, and I guess technically it is that. Mostly this book is about the author. Montgomery is terribly earnest and a mediocre writer, and she goes on and on and on about herself for a large percentage of this book. Her special aquarium visiting privileges, her friendships with other humans and their backgrounds, her learning to scuba dive. I wanted to bail around the halfway point but didn't. This book isn't what I expected, but that happens sometimes. The actually science based bits on octopuses are interesting but not as plentiful as I'd like, and as a memoir (my favorite category of writing!) this isn't a winner.

    Book preview

    The Soul of an Octopus - Sy Montgomery

    CHAPTER ONE

    Athena

    Encountering the Mind of a Mollusk

    On a rare, warm day in mid-March, when the snow was melting into mud in New Hampshire, I traveled to Boston, where everyone was strolling along the harbor or sitting on benches licking ice cream cones. But I quit the blessed sunlight for the moist, dim sanctuary of the New England Aquarium. I had a date with a giant Pacific octopus.

    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. Here is an animal with venom like a snake, a beak like a parrot, and ink like an old-fashioned pen. It can weigh as much as a man and stretch as long as a car, yet it can pour its baggy, boneless body through an opening the size of an orange. It can change color and shape. It can taste with its skin. Most fascinating of all, I had read that octopuses are smart. This bore out what scant experience I had already had; like many who visit octopuses in public aquariums, I’ve often had the feeling that the octopus I was watching was watching me back, with an interest as keen as my own.

    How could that be? It’s hard to find an animal more unlike a human than an octopus. Their bodies aren’t organized like ours. We go: head, body, limbs. They go: body, head, limbs. Their mouths are in their armpits—or, if you prefer to liken their arms to our lower, instead of upper, extremities, between their legs. They breathe water. Their appendages are covered with dexterous, grasping suckers, a structure for which no mammal has an equivalent.

    And not only are octopuses on the opposite side of the great vertebral divide that separates the backboned creatures such as mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish from everything else; they are classed within the invertebrates as mollusks, as are slugs and snails and clams, animals that are not particularly renowned for their intellect. Clams don’t even have brains.

    More than half a billion years ago, the lineage that would lead to octopuses and the one leading to humans separated. Was it possible, I wondered, to reach another mind on the other side of that divide?

    Octopuses represent the great mystery of the Other. They seem completely alien, and yet their world—the ocean—comprises far more of the Earth (70 percent of its surface area; more than 90 percent of its habitable space) than does land. Most animals on this planet live in the ocean. And most of them are invertebrates.

    I wanted to meet the octopus. I wanted to touch an alternate reality. I wanted to explore a different kind of consciousness, if such a thing exists. What is it like to be an octopus? Is it anything like being a human? Is it even possible to know?

    So when the aquarium’s director of public relations met me in the lobby and offered to introduce me to Athena, the octopus, I felt like a privileged visitor to another world. But what I began to discover that day was my own sweet blue planet—a world breathtakingly alien, startling, and wondrous; a place where, after half a century of life on this earth, much of it as a naturalist, I would at last feel fully at home.

    Athena’s lead keeper isn’t in. My heart sinks; not just anyone can open up the octopus tank, and for good reason. A giant Pacific octopus—the largest of the world’s 250 or so octopus species—can easily overpower a person. Just one of a big male’s three-inch-diameter suckers can lift 30 pounds, and a giant Pacific octopus has 1,600 of them. An octopus bite can inject a neurotoxic venom as well as saliva that has the ability to dissolve flesh. Worst of all, an octopus can take the opportunity to escape from an open tank, and an escaped octopus is a big problem for both the octopus and the aquarium.

    Happily, another aquarist, Scott Dowd, will help me. A big guy in his early forties with a silvery beard and twinkling blue eyes, Scott is the senior aquarist for the Freshwater Gallery, which is down the hall from Cold Marine, where Athena lives. Scott first came to the aquarium as a baby in diapers on its opening day, June 20, 1969, and basically never left. He knows almost every animal in the aquarium personally.

    Athena is about two and a half years old and weighs roughly 40 pounds, Scott explains, as he lifts the heavy lid covering her tank. I mount the three short steps of a small movable stair and lean over to see. She stretches about five feet long. Her head—by head, I mean both the actual head and the mantle, or body, because that’s where we mammals expect an animal’s head to be—is about the size of a small watermelon. Or at least a honeydew, says Scott. When she first came, it was the size of a grapefruit. The giant Pacific octopus is one of the fastest-growing animals on the planet. Hatching from an egg the size of a grain of rice, one can grow both longer and heavier than a man in three years.

    By the time Scott has propped open the tank cover, Athena has already oozed from the far corner of her 560-gallon tank to investigate us. Holding to the corner with two arms, she unfurls the others, her whole body red with excitement, and reaches to the surface. Her white suckers face up, like the palm of a person reaching out for a handshake.

    May I touch her? I ask Scott.

    Sure, he says. I take off my wristwatch, remove my scarf, roll up my sleeves, and plunge both arms elbow-deep into the shockingly cold 47°F water.

    Twisting, gelatinous, her arms boil up from the water, reaching for mine. Instantly both my hands and forearms are engulfed by dozens of soft, questing suckers.

    Not everyone would like this. The naturalist and explorer William Beebe found the touch of the octopus repulsive. I have always a struggle before I can make my hands do their duty and seize a tentacle, he confessed. Victor Hugo imagined such an event as an unmitigated horror leading to certain doom. The spectre lies upon you; the tiger can only devour you; the devil-fish, horrible, sucks your life-blood away, Hugo wrote in Toilers of the Sea. The muscles swell, the fibres of the body are contorted, the skin cracks under the loathsome oppression, the blood spurts out and mingles horribly with the lymph of the monster, which clings to the victim with innumerable hideous mouths. . . . Fear of the octopus lies deep in the human psyche. No animal is more savage in causing the death of man in the water, Pliny the Elder wrote in Naturalis Historia, circa AD 79, for it struggles with him by coiling round him and it swallows him with sucker-cups and drags him asunder. . . .

    But Athena’s suction is gentle, though insistent. It pulls me like an alien’s kiss. Her melon-size head bobs to the surface, and her left eye—octopuses have a dominant eye, as people have dominant hands—swivels in its socket to meet mine. Her black pupil is a fat hyphen in a pearly globe. Its expression reminds me of the look in the eyes of paintings of Hindu gods and goddesses: serene, all-knowing, heavy with wisdom stretching back beyond time.

    She’s looking right at you, Scott says.

    As I hold her glittering gaze, I instinctively reach to touch her head. As supple as leather, as tough as steel, as cold as night, Hugo wrote of the octopus’s flesh; but to my surprise, her head is silky and softer than custard. Her skin is flecked with ruby and silver, a night sky reflected on the wine-dark sea. As I stroke her with my fingertips, her skin goes white beneath my touch. White is the color of a relaxed octopus; in cuttlefish, close relatives of octopus, females turn white when they encounter a fellow female, someone whom they need not fight or flee.

    It is possible that Athena, in fact, knows I am female. Female octopuses, like female humans, possess estrogen; she could be tasting and recognizing mine. Octopuses can taste with their entire bodies, but this sense is most exquisitely developed in their suckers. Athena’s is an exceptionally intimate embrace. She is at once touching and tasting my skin, and possibly the muscle, bone, and blood beneath. Though we have only just met, Athena already knows me in a way no being has known me before.

    And she seems as curious about me as I am about her. Slowly, she transfers her grip on me from the smaller, outer suckers at the tips of her arms to the larger, stronger ones nearer her head. I am now bent at a 90-degree angle, folded like a half-open book, as I stand on the little step stool. I realize what is happening: She is pulling me steadily into her tank.

    How happily I would go with her, but alas, I would not fit. Her lair is beneath a rocky overhang, into which she can flow like water, but I cannot, constrained as I am by bones and joints. The water in her tank would come to chest height on me, if I were standing up; but the way she is pulling me, I would be upside down, headfirst in the water, and soon facing the limitations of my air-hungry lungs. I ask Scott if I should try to detach from her grip and he gently pulls us apart, her suckers making popping sounds like small plungers as my skin is released.

    Octopus?! Aren’t they monsters? my friend Jody Simpson asked me in alarm, as we hiked with our dogs the next day. Weren’t you scared? Her question reflected less an ignorance of the natural world than a wide knowledge of Western culture.

    A horror of giant octopuses and their kin, giant squid, has animated Western art forms from thirteenth-century Icelandic legends to twentieth-century American films. The massive hafgufa who swallows men and ships and whales and everything it can reach in the Old Icelandic saga Orvar-Odds is surely based on some kind of tentacled mollusk, and gave rise to the myth of the kraken. French sailors’ reports of giant octopuses attacking their ship off the coast of Angola inspired one of the most lasting images of octopus in modern memory, one that is still tattooed on sailors’ arms: Mollusk expert Pierre Denys de Montfort’s iconic pen-and-wash drawing of 1801 shows a giant octopus rising from the ocean, its arms twisting in great loops all the way to the top of a schooner’s three masts. He claimed the existence of at least two kinds of giant octopus, one of which, he concluded, was surely responsible for the disappearance of no fewer than ten British warships that mysteriously vanished one night in 1782. (To Montfort’s public embarrassment, a survivor later revealed that they were really lost in a hurricane.)

    In 1830, Alfred Tennyson published a sonnet about a monstrous octopus whose Unnumber’d and enormous polypi / Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green. And of course an octopus was the nemesis-star of Jules Verne’s 1870 French science-fiction novel, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Though the octopus becomes a giant squid in the 1954 film of the same name, the man who shot the underwater sequences for the original film in 1916, John Williamson, said this about the novel’s original villain: A man-eating shark, a giant poison-fanged moray, a murderous barracuda, appear harmless, innocent, friendly and even attractive when compared to the octopus. No words can adequately describe the sickening horror one feels when from some dark mysterious lair, the great lidless eyes of the octopus stare at one. . . . One’s very soul seems to shrink beneath their gaze, and cold perspiration beads the brow.

    Eager to defend the octopus against centuries of character assassination, I replied to my friend, Monsters? Not at all! Dictionary definitions of monster always mention the words large, ugly, and frightening. To me, Athena was as beautiful and benign as an angel. Even large is up for debate where octopuses are concerned. The largest species, the giant Pacific, isn’t as big as it used to be. An octopus with an arm span of more than 150 feet may have once existed. But the largest octopus listed by The Guinness Book of Records weighed 300 pounds and boasted an arm span stretching 32 feet. In 1945, a much heavier octopus captured off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, was reported to weigh 402 pounds; disappointingly, a photo of this animal displayed with a man for size comparison suggests a radial span of only 20 to 22 feet. But even these modern giants hardly measure up to their close molluscan relative, the colossal squid. A recent specimen of this species, captured by a New Zealand boat fishing off Antarctica, weighed more than 1,000 pounds and stretched more than 30 feet long. These days, lovers of monsters lament that the biggest octopuses seem to have been captured more than half a century ago.

    As I described Athena’s grace, her gentleness, her apparent friendliness, Jody was skeptical. A huge, slimy cephalopod covered with suckers qualified as a monster in her book. Well, I conceded, changing tacks, "being a monster is not necessarily a bad thing."

    I’ve always harbored a fondness for monsters. Even as a child, I had rooted for Godzilla and King Kong instead of for the people trying to kill them. It had seemed to me that these monsters’ irritation was perfectly reasonable. Nobody likes to be awakened from slumber by a nuclear explosion, so it was no wonder to me Godzilla was crabby; as for King Kong, few men would blame him for his attraction to pretty Fay Wray. (Though her screaming would have eventually put off anyone less patient than a gorilla.)

    If you took the monsters’ point of view, everything they did made perfect sense. The trick was learning to think like a monster.

    After our embrace, Athena had floated back to her lair; I staggered down the three stairs of the step stool. I stood for a moment, almost dizzy, and caught my breath. The only word I could manage was wow.

    The way she presented her head to you was unusual, said Scott. I was surprised. He told me that the last two octopuses who lived here, Truman and, before him, George, would only offer their arms to a visitor—not the head.

    Athena’s behavior was particularly surprising given her personality. Truman and George were laid-back octopuses, but Athena had earned her name, that of the Greek goddess of war and strategy. She was a particularly feisty octopus: very active, and prone to excitement, which she showed by turning her skin bumpy and red.

    Octopuses are highly individual. This is often reflected in the names keepers give them. At the Seattle Aquarium, one giant Pacific octopus was named Emily Dickinson because she was so shy that she spent her days hiding behind her tank’s backdrop; the public almost never saw her. Eventually she was released into Puget Sound, where she had originally been caught. Another was named Leisure Suit Larry—the minute a keeper peeled one of his questing arms off his or her body, two more would attach in its place. A third octopus earned the name Lucretia McEvil, because she constantly dismantled everything in her tank.

    Octopuses realize that humans are individuals too. They like some people; they dislike others. And they behave differently toward those they know and trust. Though a bit leery of visitors, George had been relaxed and friendly with his keeper, senior aquarist Bill Murphy. Before I came, I had watched a video of the two of them together that the aquarium had posted on YouTube in 2007. George was floating at the top of the tank, gently tasting Bill with his suckers, as the tall, lanky aquarist bent down to pet and scratch him. I consider him to be a friend, Bill told the cameraman as he ran his fingers over George’s head, because I’ve spent a lot of time interacting with him, taking care of him, and seeing him every day. Some people find them very creepy and slimy, he said, but I enjoy it a lot. In some ways they’re just like a dog. I actually pet his head or scratch his forehead. He loves it.

    It doesn’t take long for an octopus to figure out who his friends are. In one study, Seattle Aquarium biologist Roland Anderson exposed eight giant Pacific octopuses to two unfamiliar humans, dressed identically in blue aquarium uniforms. One person consistently fed a particular octopus, and another always touched it with a bristly stick. Within a week, at first sight of the people—looking up at them through the water, without even touching or tasting them—most of the octopuses moved toward the feeder and away from the irritator. Sometimes the octopus would aim its water-shooting funnel, the siphon near the side of the head with which an octopus jets through the sea, at the person who had touched it with the bristly stick.

    Occasionally an octopus takes a dislike to a particular person. At the Seattle Aquarium, when one biologist would check on a normally friendly octopus each night, she would be greeted by a blast of painfully cold salt water shot from the funnel. The octopus hosed her and only her. Wild octopuses use their funnels not only for propulsion but also to repel things they don’t like, just as you might use a snowblower to clear a sidewalk. Possibly the octopus was irritated by the night biologist’s flashlight. One volunteer at the New England Aquarium always got this same treatment from Truman, who would shoot a soaking stream of salt water at her every time he saw her. Later, the volunteer left her position at the aquarium for college. Months later, she returned for a visit. Truman—who hadn’t squirted anyone in the meantime—instantly soaked her again.

    The idea of octopuses with thoughts, feelings, and personalities disturbs some scientists and philosophers. Only recently have many researchers accorded even chimpanzees, so closely related to humans we can share blood transfusions, the dignity of a mind. The idea set forth by French philosopher René Descartes in 1637, that only people think (and therefore, only people exist in the moral universe—Je pense, donc je suis) is still so pervasive in modern science that even Jane Goodall, one of the most widely recognized scientists in the world, was too intimidated to publish some of her most intriguing observations of wild chimpanzees for twenty years. From her extensive studies at Gombe Stream Reserve in Tanzania, she had many times observed wild chimpanzees purposely deceiving one another, for example stifling a food cry to keep others from discovering some fruit. Her long delay in writing of it stemmed from a fear that other scientists would accuse her of anthropomorphizing—projecting human feelings onto—her study subjects, a cardinal sin in animal science. I have spoken with other researchers at Gombe who still haven’t published some of their findings from the 1970s, fearing their scientific colleagues would never believe them.

    There’s always an effort to minimize emotion and intelligence in other species, the New England Aquarium’s director of public relations, Tony LaCasse, said after I met Athena. The prejudice is particularly strong against fish and invertebrates, agreed Scott. We followed the ramp that spirals around the Giant Ocean Tank, affectionately known as the GOT, the three-story, 200,000-gallon re-creation of a Caribbean reef community that is the central pillar of the aquarium. Sharks, rays, turtles, and schools of tropical fish floated by like daydreams as we broke the scientific taboo and spoke of minds that many deny exist.

    Scott remembered an octopus whose sneaky depredations rivaled those of Goodall’s deceitful chimps. There was a tank of special flounder about fifteen feet away from the octopus tank, he said. The fish were part of a study. But to the researchers’ dismay, the flounder started disappearing, one by one. One day they caught the culprit red-handed. The octopus had been slipping out of her tank and eating the flounder! When the octopus was discovered, Scott said, she gave a guilty, sideways look and slithered away.

    Tony told me about Bimini, a large female nurse shark who once lived in the Giant Ocean Tank. One day the shark attacked one of the spotted eels in the tank and was swimming around with her victim’s tail protruding from her mouth. One of the divers who knew Bimini well wagged his finger at her, and then bopped her on the nose, Tony told me. In response, Bimini instantly regurgitated the eel. (Though the eel was whisked to the on-site veterinarian for emergency treatment, he unfortunately could not be saved.)

    Once a similar thing had happened with our border collie, Sally. She had come upon a dead deer in the woods and was feeding on it. When I growled, Drop it! she actually vomited it up for me. I had always been proud of her obedience. But a shark?

    The sharks don’t eat all the fish in the tank, because they’re well fed. But sometimes they will eat or injure other animals for other reasons besides hunger, Scott told me. One day, a group of permits—long, thin, shiny fish whose dorsal fins are shaped like scythes—were thrashing around near the surface of the Giant Ocean Tank. They were making a lot of noise and commotion, Tony said. One of the sand tiger sharks shot to the surface to attack the fish, biting their fins—but not killing or eating them. Apparently, the shark was just irritated. This was a dominance bite, not a predator bite, Tony said.

    To many, we spoke heresy. Skeptics are right to point out that it’s easy to misunderstand animals, even those most like ourselves. Years ago, when I was visiting Birute Galdikas’s research camp in Borneo, where ex-captive orangutans were learning to live in the wild, a new American volunteer, smitten with the shaggy orange apes, rushed up to an adult female to give her a hug. The female picked up the volunteer and slammed her against the ground. The woman didn’t realize that the orangutan didn’t feel like being grabbed by a stranger.

    It’s alluring to assume that animals feel as we do, especially when we want them to like us. A friend who works with elephants told me of a woman who called herself an animal communicator, who was visiting an aggressive elephant at a zoo. After her telepathic conversation with the elephant, the communicator told the keeper, Oh, that elephant really likes me. He wants to put his head in my lap. What was most interesting about this interaction was the part the communicator may have gotten right: Elephants do sometimes put their heads in the laps of people. They do this to kill them. They crush people with their foreheads like you would grind out a cigarette butt with your shoe.

    The early-twentieth-century Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once famously wrote, If a lion could talk, we couldn’t understand him. With an octopus, the opportunity for misunderstanding is greatly magnified. A lion is a mammal like us; 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.

    In his classic The Outermost House, American naturalist Henry Beston writes that animals are not brethren, they are not underlings but beings gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are, he writes, other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth. To many people, an octopus is not just another nation; it’s an alien from a distant and menacing galaxy.

    But to me, Athena was more than an octopus. She was an individual—who I liked very much—and also, possibly, a portal. She was leading me to a new way of thinking about thinking, of imagining what other minds might be like. And she was enticing me to explore, in a way I never had before, my own planet—a world of mostly water, which I hardly knew.

    Back at home, I tried to replay my interaction with Athena in my mind. It was difficult. There was so much of her, everywhere. I could not keep track of her gelatinous body and its eight floaty, rubbery arms. I could not keep track of her continually changing color, shape, or texture. One moment, she’d be bright red and bumpy, and the next, she’d be smoother and veined with dark brown or white. Patches on different parts of her body would change color so fast—in less than a second—that by the time I registered the last change, she would be on to another. To borrow a phrase from songwriter John Denver, she filled up my senses.

    Unconstrained by joints, her arms were constantly questing, coiling, stretching, reaching, unfurling, all in different directions at once. Each arm seemed like a separate creature, with a mind of its own. In fact, this is almost literally true. Three fifths of octopuses’

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1