Page 26 - Boca ViewPointe - June '24

Page 26, Viewpointe June 2024
Book Review

Secrets Of The Octopus are actually color blind! It and over a period of several months slowly starve to death
is the octopus’s skin that to protect the babies.
By Nils A. Shapiro senses the background’s We met at the aquarium the following week. Sy
colors and textures! Montgomery had visited this octopus numerous times as
It seems to me that after Officials at aquariums part of the research for her book. As soon as Sy the author
300 million years of their have learned that stepped to the top of the tank, the octopus looked up and,
life on this planet, one octopuses get bored very as weak as she was from not eating, she raised a tentacle,
of the most extraordinary quickly and must be kept wrapped it around the author’s waist in greeting and kept
creatures to have ever mentally challenged. For it there.
existed is today, more than example, it takes them After a while, Sy the author gently uncoiled the
ever, the focus of human only minutes to learn how tentacle, turned to me and said, “It’s your turn, Nils.”
attention. There are several to open a childproof cap on I stepped up to the tank and was handed a small fish, a
reasons for such current a prescription medication capelin – the octopus’s favorite food. A tentacle arose,
interest. One reason is that – press down, then turn took it from my fingers … but dropped it into the water.
– thanks to decades of research by marine scientists – we – or a jar that holds a She was already too weak to eat and was starving.
now have more knowledge about octopuses’ remarkable tempting treat, like a shrimp: unscrew the metal top by The tentacle arose again from the water and touched my
intelligence and incredible range of abilities, several of turning it counter-clockwise. The answer is to provide hand. She was tasting me, right down to my bloodstream.
which are described later in this review. different kinds of puzzles regularly, all year round. I passed the test – and I was there with her friend, Sy
A book written by Sy Montgomery, The Soul of an Octopuses can distinguish between different human the author. So slowly and gently her tentacle, sucker by
Octopus, which I highly recommended in an earlier faces and will bond with individual humans. I can sucker, encircled my wrist, feeling like wet velvet, and
review, quickly climbed the bestseller lists in 25 countries personally attest to that. When my review of The Soul of stayed there as we looked at each other.
around the world. an Octopus was published some years ago in this column, Soon, realizing that here was a creature as different
That book inspired a 27-year-old New Yorker, Warren author Sy Montgomery (whom I had never met) called to from me as would be an alien from outer space – yet at
K. Carlyle – who had been fascinated by octopuses since thank me and asked if I would like to meet Sy, the octopus least as intelligent as myself and greeting me in the only
he was a young boy – to launch in 2015 an online octopus at the New England Aquarium in Boston that had been way she could – I began to speak silently to her, choking
fan club and educational organization named OctoNation. named after her. But, she cautioned, the octopus had laid back tears with every word: “Do you realize what’s
Today, that club numbers more than a million members her 100,000 eggs and, as I would know from having read happening?” “Do you know you’re dying?” “You want
worldwide. Carlyle has also written for this new book, her book, since there are many predators in their natural to protect your babies, I know.” “I wish I could help, but
Secrets of the Octopus, the informative and beautifully ocean habitat female octopuses instinctively spread their
illustrated OctoProfiles of 16 different octopus and tentacles atop the eggs, stop foraging for their own food, Book Review on page 27
cuttlefish species that follow the book’s major text.
To meet the demands of this worldwide attention, the
National Geographic Society has produced a television WHAT ARE YOUR
series, Secrets of the Octopus, which on April 21 began
streaming on the Hulu and Disney channels. They wisely MEDICARE OPTIONS?
turned to the author of the earlier book, Sy Montgomery,
to write a new companion volume for their TV series. An I will help you find a health plan that
interesting foreword has been added by Alex Schnell, best fits your needs at no cost to you.
Ph.D., an Australian wildlife scientist and research • Medicare Supplements
associate at the University of Cambridge. • Medicare Advantage Plans
While this gorgeous new volume, Secrets of the • Individual Health Insurance
Octopus, is different from Montgomery’s earlier The • Medicare Part D Drug Plans
Soul of an Octopus in important ways, each offers its • Dental, Vision, & Cancer Plans
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- Beth S. Sigel
photographers to include more than 60 stunning full-
page and double-spread color photos of octopuses in Boca Pointe Resident
their natural habitats. There are more than 300 different (954) 261-4648
species worldwide, ranging in size from tentacle spreads beth@reliablemedicaresolutions.com
of 2 inches to 16 feet! www.reliablemedicaresolutions.com
Octopuses are technically members of the mollusk
family, which also includes scallops, oysters, clams “We do not offer every plan in your area. Any information we provide is limited to those plans we do offer in your area.
Please contact 1-800-Medicare or Medicare.gov to get information on all your options.”
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
how an octopus that has a tentacle spread of as much
as 16 feet can escape from its tank in an aquarium by NOW ACCEPTING NEW PATIENTS
squeezing through a hole as small as 2 inches round!
Octopuses are also cephalopods – their eight legs
(tentacles) are attached to their heads, rather than to a
torso, as in the case of humans and most creatures. The Boca Raton Concierge Medicine Doctor
fact that an octopus has three hearts, blue blood and the
equivalent of nine brains – each of its eight tentacles can
think for itself – is only the beginning of what makes this Board Certified in
alien-like creature so fascinating. Moreover, if a tentacle
is lost it can grow back in two to four months. And from Internal Medicine
author Montgomery’s own and others’ experiences we with Added Qualifications in
learn that these highly intelligent octopuses are as curious
about us humans as we are about them. Geriatrics (2002).
Here are just a few examples of the hundreds of
remarkable facts you will discover in the pages of this Steven E. Reznick, MD, FACP
book (some text has been omitted for lack of space and
been replaced by ellipses). Voted a “Best Doctor”
“Boneless, venomous, and equipped with eight
powerful suckered arms (a single large sucker on the by his peers.
largest species, the giant Pacific, can lift 35 pounds –
and there are 200 on each arm), octopuses are gifted Call to request a complimentary meeting
with talents that seem so otherworldly you’d have to
go to outer space or science fiction to match them … with Dr. Reznick.
Octopuses can taste with every inch of their skin. They
can squirt ink … as a smokescreen … They can drool a
muscle-dissolving acid and a neurotoxic venom … But 561.368.0191
the octopus’s hallucinatory ability to change color and
shape is its signature superpower – one it can deploy
faster than a human can blink an eye!” 7280 W. Palmetto Park Road | 205N
An octopus can change its colors and overall skin Boca Raton, FL 33433
patterns to match any background it may be next to – www.bocaconciergedoc.com
various corals, rocks, sea grass, etc. – 100 times a minute,
faster than a human can blink, in order to camouflage itself
to hide from a predator … even though the octopus’s eyes