The OctoPost: Octopus Secrets and Paperback Flamingos
Cephalopod News
Have you seen Secrets of the Octopus, National Geographic’s new cephalopod show? My kids and I loved it, not only for profiling some of our favorite animals, but for being a nature documentary in which joy and wonder outweigh fear and stress. Here’s my brief review in a twitter thread, and longer reviews by other people in Sierra and the Wall Street Journal—although both erroneously state that Secrets contains the first octopus mating captured on camera.
Octo-sex has been recorded numerous times, but the mistake is understandable, since the show’s narrator states, “captured for the very first time.” However, the phrase refers only to this pre-mating act: “[the female octopus’s] arms reach inside her body and she expels the sperm from her previous encounters.” This behavior shows her interest in replacing old sperm with new, and it’s been observed in several cephalopod species, but little studied.
(The WSJ reviewer also complains that Secrets’ use of the plural “octopuses” is too “downscale,” and proceeds to obstinately use “octopi” throughout his review.)
Speaking of sperm storage, remember Terrance—the Oklahoma octopus who became an internet celebrity after successfully fertilizing her eggs with smuggled sperm? She died on Earth Day, having survived a surprising four months past spawning. Despite how many people knew and loved Terrance, not nearly as many know about the longstanding online community of cephalopod aquarists known as TONMO. It was a TONMO member who supplied Terrance to her human family, and another member who helped rear her babies and offered a behind-the-scenes review of the experience here. The story contains some deaths and hard lessons, but many of the octopus babies are now thriving juveniles.
On the topic of babies . . .
My News
Today is the paperback release of Nursery Earth! I’m running a signed copy giveaway on Instagram/Facebook. Also, if you buy a copy and send me your receipt and a mailing address between now and Sunday, May 12, I would love to send you a signed bookplate plus baby animal sticker.
If you can leave a review on Goodreads, Amazon, or anywhere else that takes reviews, I would truly appreciate it.
Funny Pages
Last month I attended (remotely) the world’s first Cephalopod Neuroscience Conference, where I saw an awesome talk about those cephalopod sex chromosomes I keep bringing up! Delighted anew by the fact that octopuses and moths have the same type of sex determination, I drew a picture.
