Page 8 - Boca Exposure - June '24

Page 8, Boca Exposure
Book Review

Secrets Of The Octopus Octopuses are also cephalopods – their eight legs and there are 200 on each arm), octopuses are gifted
(tentacles) are attached to their heads, rather than to a with talents that seem so otherworldly you’d have to
By Nils A. Shapiro torso, as in the case of humans and most creatures. The go to outer space or science fiction to match them …
It seems to me that after fact that an octopus has three hearts, blue blood and the Octopuses can taste with every inch of their skin. They
300 million years of their equivalent of nine brains – each of its eight tentacles can can squirt ink … as a smokescreen … They can drool a
life on this planet, one think for itself – is only the beginning of what makes this muscle-dissolving acid and a neurotoxic venom … But the
of the most extraordinary alien-like creature so fascinating. Moreover, if a tentacle octopus’s hallucinatory ability to change color and shape
creatures to have ever is lost it can grow back in two to four months. And from is its signature superpower – one it can deploy faster than
existed is today, more than author Montgomery’s own and others’ experiences we a human can blink an eye!”
ever, the focus of human learn that these highly intelligent octopuses are as curious An octopus can change its colors and overall skin
attention. There are several about us humans as we are about them. patterns to match any background it may be next to –
reasons for such current Here are just a few examples of the hundreds of various corals, rocks, sea grass, etc. – 100 times a minute,
interest. One reason is remarkable facts you will discover in the pages of this faster than a human can blink, in order to camouflage itself
that – thanks to decades book (some text has been omitted for lack of space and to hide from a predator … even though the octopus’s eyes
of research by marine scientists – we now have more been replaced by ellipses). are actually color blind! It is the octopus’s skin that senses
knowledge about octopuses’ remarkable intelligence and “Boneless, venomous, and equipped with eight the background’s colors and textures!
incredible range of abilities, several of which are described powerful suckered arms (a single large sucker on the
later in this review. largest species, the giant Pacific, can lift 35 pounds – Book Review on page 9
A book written by Sy
Montgomery, The Soul
of an Octopus, which I
highly recommended in
an earlier review, quickly
climbed the bestseller lists
in 25 countries around the
world.
That book inspired a HAPPY HOUR: MON - THURS, ALL DAY AT BAR ONLY
27-year-old New Yorker,
Warren K. Carlyle – who MON - FRI 3 - 6 PM
had been fascinated by
octopuses since he was a FULL INDOOR $ 99
young boy – to launch in AND OUTDOOR 59
2015 an online octopus fan
club and educational organization named OctoNation. (COVERED PATIO)
Today, that club numbers more than a million members
worldwide. Carlyle has also written for this new book, BAR AND DINING
Secrets of the Octopus, the informative and beautifully
illustrated OctoProfiles of 16 different octopus and
cuttlefish species that follow the book’s major text. ONE APPETIZER,
To meet the demands of this worldwide attention, the CHOOSE 2 ENTREES
National Geographic Society has produced a television FROM 15 DIFFERENT CHOICES,
series, Secrets of the Octopus, which on April 21 began ALSO INCLUDES 1 DESSERT
streaming on the Hulu and Disney channels. They wisely Add soup or salad
turned to the author of the earlier book, Sy Montgomery, for only $2.49
to write a new companion volume for their TV series. An
interesting foreword has been added by Alex Schnell,
Ph.D., an Australian wildlife scientist and research
associate at the University of Cambridge.
While this gorgeous new volume, Secrets of the
Octopus, is different from Montgomery’s earlier The
Soul of an Octopus in important ways, each offers its own
special pleasures. Since this column is a review of the new
book, I will focus on that one here.
The most obvious difference is that it takes advantage
of the National Geographic Society’s staff of explorer-
photographers to include more than 60 stunning full-
page and double-spread color photos of octopuses in
their natural habitats. There are more than 300 different
species worldwide, ranging in size from tentacle spreads
of 2 inches to 16 feet!
Octopuses are technically members of the mollusk
family, which also includes scallops, oysters, clams
and snails. But at some point during their evolution
octopuses lost their shells and, like squid and cuttlefish,
are gelatinous – meaning they have no bones, which is Upscale Resale
how an octopus that has a tentacle spread of as much as 16
feet can escape from its tank in an aquarium by squeezing Experience The Difference
through a hole as small as 2 inches round!
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