Birdsong’s Blog
Read “What the Octopus Knows” by Sy Montgomery and watch our music video “Oxford the Octopus”
Dear Octopus and Mollusk Lovers,
I’m excited to share with you a fascinating article about octopuses and their unique ways of being, written by one of my favorite journalists and naturalists, Sy Montgomery and published in the LA Times online.
Below are excerpts from Sy’s article, “WHAT THE OCTOPUS KNOWS”. When you are finished reading, let your octopus awe continue as you sing along with our all time favorite octopus song video, OXFORD THE OCTOPUS! The more I learn about this amazing creature, the more I am convinced that we are sharing our world with countless intelligent animals from whom we have much to learn!
with love and an eight-armed hug,
Birdsong
From “WHAT THE OCTOPUS KNOWS” by Sy Montgomery:
“IT CAN CHANGE COLOR and shape. It can taste with its skin. It has a beak like a parrot, venom like a snake and ink like an old-fashioned pen,
and it can pour a 100-pound body through an opening smaller than an orange. You’d have to turn to science fiction or go to outer space to find an animal more alien than an octopus…
Octopuses are remarkably intelligent, even though they are in the family of invertebrates known as mollusks, which includes the brainless clams. They learn to recognize individual humans quickly, even when they are looking up through the water at volunteers who are identically dressed, as has been demonstrated in experiments at the Seattle Aquarium.
They also can solve puzzles. One devised at New England Aquarium demanded the octopus open three plexiglass boxes, each nested inside the other, and each with a different lock, in order to retrieve a crab from the innermost cube. Every single octopus presented with the cubes figured them out. They can also open jars— and sometimes screw the lids back on — and they enjoy assembling and disassembling Mr. Potato Head and Legos.
They excel at escaping their tanks. They can lift heavy lids (a single sucker can lift up to 30 pounds) and ooze through tiny cracks. At a number of aquariums, octopuses have been known to sneak out of one tank in order to sneak into another and eat its rightful occupants. Sometimes they seem to escape simply because they are curious…”
READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE.
-Top Photo Attribution: Beckmannjan at the German language Wikipedia
-Second Photo by PATRIK STOLLARZ AFP / Getty Images
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Birdsong is an environmental songstress who is passionate about about Nature, music and inspiring kids to be students and stewards of the Earth. Read more...