November 29, 2017 • 35 mins
Will and Mango dive deep to uncover the greatest facts about Octopuses, Squid and Jellyfish. Learn the proper octopus throwing etiquette for Red Wings games, why whales are so good at defeating Giant Squid, and why Oclantis ranked #1 on our list of 2017's Greatest Octopus Cities. Featuring Spineless author Juli Berwald.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what, Mango? What's that? Will? All right? So I've
been looking at octopus facts all week, and I hope
you have too, because that's the episode we're recording right now.
But did you know that they love puzzles like they
actually kind of need them. I mean, it's not surprising
that they're smart. They're basically a giant heads with too
many legs. So I was reading about Louis the octopus.
He's a giant Pacific octopus who lives at an aquarium
(00:21):
in Cornwall, England. So he's this beautiful six ft wide
creature and he insists on cuddling with his Mr. Potato
Head toy, which sounds cute. It is, but Louis gets
really aggressive if you try to take it away from him,
so don't try to do that. I mean, Luis needs
to learn to share. So is he just rearranging the toy? Well,
he does fiddle with the parts and and supposedly the
(00:41):
bright colors are also stimulating. But the most appealing thing
for him is that the scientists fill the tiny toy
with crab meat or smelt. They just stuff it through
the arm and the headholes and it's a bit of
a puzzle. I mean, it's fun for Louis and other
octopus to figure out how to get those treats. But
reading about Louis made me wonder how smart are squid
and octopus? What are the major differences between them? And
(01:04):
how exactly do you stuff a smelt into a potato head?
And that's exactly what today's show is all about. It's
(01:29):
alp in to part time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and
as always I'm joined by my good friend Manuesh I
ticket off and sitting behind the soundproof glass wearing his
Octopus Give the Best Hugs t shirt is our friend
and producer Tristan McNeil. He'd been staring at that thing
on eBay for weeks. Tobago, Today's show is a little
all over the place. I know, we wanted to chat
about squid and octopus. Yeah, that's right, but since we're
(01:52):
covering the sea, I thought would be fun to slip
in a quick chat with one of our favorite authors,
Julie Burwald. She wrote this lovely new book called Spineless.
It's all about jellyfish and and though octopus and squid
and jellyfish aren't exactly the same thing, it did feel
like a delicious seafood salad of an episode. But you
don't even eat octopus, maga. I know, you know, I
actually used to eat it, But then we did this
(02:14):
article on octopus and metal flass and they just seemed
too smart. And also it compared the creatures two kittens. Actually,
I pulled up this quote because I thought it was
so funny. Here to the chagrin of some scientists, these
cephalopods can run. As a pre vet student, Alexa Warburton
had the tricky task of scooping octopuses out of their tanks.
The stubborn animals would hide or squeeze into the tanks
(02:35):
cracks to avoid being removed. As a last ditch effort,
some octopuses would trampoline off the net, leap to the floor,
and take off zig zagging around the lab. It's like quote,
chasing a cat, Warburton told a Ryan Magazine. Yeah, I mean,
I feel like hurting octopus is the new herding cats.
But that there was a been in the story where
this octopus actually escaped into a scientists library, and when
(02:58):
the scientist walked in, he saw the octopus going through
each of his books, just turning the page away. Is
that actually true? Yeah, we fact checked it. I mean,
there's certainly escape artists, and they're kind of destructive. To
Scientific American reporter that two workers at the Santa Monica
Pier Aquarium walked in to find two gallons of seawater
soaking the floor of their new space. They try to
(03:20):
figure out what had happened, and they realized these two
octopus had quote disassembled a water recycling valve and redirected
the two to spew water out of the tank for
about ten hours. There must have been so much water
it ridiculous. But I mean that seems more playful than
means spirited, right, And obviously we know that octopus is
play not just from your Lewis and Mr Potato Head example,
(03:41):
but also because octopuses have been observed in boring situations
amusing themselves. So there was this one story I read
where this octopus and a tank was given like an
empty floating pill bottle, I think, and after enough time
it started flicking it into a jet of water in
the aquarium and waiting for it to come back, then
doing it again and again in the scientists claimed it
was like watching a kid throw a ball against the wall,
(04:03):
but it did make me wonder how smarter octopus? And
so what did you find out? That octopus aren't really
very cooperative subjects? I mean, obviously they've got all these
skills right there, super strong, they can hide. Sometimes they
mimic other forms, and and you're talking specifically about the
mimic octopus. That's one of the types of octopus. Right. Yeah,
they're masters of disguise and changing their shapes, but they're
(04:25):
also good at going through mazes and solving little puzzles.
But all of that makes them really difficult to study.
So this is from a report I saw in the Guardian.
Apparently this paper tried to teach three octopus to pull
a lever for food. And we've seen this with you know,
monkeys and rats and other creatures. And first of all,
the octopus in the study have the best, most dignified names.
(04:46):
What's that They were called Albert, Bertram, and Charles. That's
what I would have named my octopus. That that is dignified.
So Albert and Bertram are really good subjects. They pulled
the levers in a quote reasonably consistent manner. According to
the study. It Charles, it turns out, is a total terror.
He tries to pull a light that's suspended above the
water into the tank. He squirts water at anyone who
(05:08):
gets close. He's basically taunting the scientists, and then he
ends the experiment by breaking off the levers so they
couldn't run the experiment anymore. I mean, Charles is totally gangster.
I mean, I have to admit I kind of like
Charles amusing to watch him. I feel like maybe there's
a whole episode to be done on octopus is behaving badly.
I mean they can undo latches and untied knots. I
(05:29):
even saw a story where scientists were complaining that octopus
would leave their lab tanks at night and then go
raid the neighboring tanks for food. There was one octopus
who was squirting water at the light switch to turn
it off, and then he short circuited the power. I mean,
these are these horror stories that come out, and clearly
they're kind of smart. But I wonder if we think
octopuses are especially smart because they look like, I don't know,
(05:52):
like aliens really, I mean they are alien like. I
don't think we'd be doing this episode if they weren't,
and their entire class of mollus is called sephalopods, which
means head foot. They're all a bunch of head feet.
And to be clear, that category isn't just octopus and
includes squid and cuttle fish and nautilus is But there's
a big debate about whether they're really that smart. The
(06:14):
octopus have about a half billion neurons, and that's particularly
amazing for a creature without a backbone. But you know,
in reality, it puts them in the range of dogs.
So even though they might play with a Rubik's cube,
but it's not like they're consistently solving them or anything,
at least I haven't seen one. There's this old Burden
Ernie sketch from Sesame Street where Ernie walks in on
(06:34):
Burt and he says, that's amazing, Butt, you're playing checkers
with your pigeon, and Bert kind of whispers something like, Ernie,
it's not that impressive. Of the seven times we've played,
he's only one twice. I think one thing I read
that really convinced me of their intelligence was that when
they're faced with the problem, they actually changed strategies. How
do you mean so scientific? American pointed this out, but
(06:55):
Apparently octopuses are a little lazy, Like, they're obviously quite strong,
and if they're given muscles or clams, they'll go for
the muscles just because the meat is easier to get
to and the shells take less effort. But if the
clams are served on a half shell, you know, if
they're at a cocktail party or something, they'll go for
the tastier meteor options. But here's what's interesting. Right when
scientists passed the long muscles, but whyed a few of
(07:17):
the shells shut? The octopus tried to open it using
one method They can use their arms, but then they
also have this beak that they can use to chip
away at the shell. And then when that took too long,
they drilled a little hole in and injected a poison
to weaken the creature's defenses. Like all octopus and cuttlefish
have a poison reserve. But the octopus would use one
method and if that proved futile, they switched to a
(07:37):
different one. And the author's point was most creatures, when
they fail, they just keep trying to do the same
thing over and over rather than adjust their approach. That
is pretty cool, and I know we're going to get
into the giant squid and cracking and how octopus and
squid are different. But before we do, let's chat a
little bit more about the octopus. So what's one of
the more surprising things you learned about them and doing
your research this week. Uh, that they're not good swimmers,
(08:00):
I think was interesting to me, and the reasons even weirder.
It's all because they have three hearts, So they're not
good swimmers because they have Yeah. Actually that was surprising
to me too. I mean I read in smith sony
and that two of the hearts worked to move blood
beyond their gills. And obviously there's so many parts of
the octopus I didn't realize beaks and gills and ragul
which is kind of like a tiny drill for a tongue. Yeah,
(08:22):
and their penis is on one of their arms, which
I also never realized. I mean, I guess that's a
little weird too. You know that while some octopus mount
their partners, others will just stick their penis arm into
a cave where a female octopus is hiding, and so
they made in what's called the distance position. That's so ridiculous.
But we were talking about the three hearts. All right,
(08:43):
So the two hearts move blood beyond the gills, and
then the third heart is exclusively for pumping blood to organs.
But when they're swimming, they actually turned that heart off.
It stops beating entirely. So they get completely exhausted when
they move that way, and they mostly choose a walk
or crawl instead. But I like the idea that octopuses
actually enjoy long walks on the beach. But there's clearly
(09:06):
a ton more to say about these bizarre and wonderful creatures.
But I also want to get Julie on the phone
to talk about jellyfish. So how about we take a
little break for that and then we dive back in.
All right, let's do it, Mango. We've got a special
guest on the line with us today. She's the author
of a fascinating new book called Spineless, The Science of
(09:27):
Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone. Julie Berwald.
Welcome to part time Genius. Thank you so much for
having me so, Julie. Jellyfish are obviously these simple and
beautiful but also reviled creatures, and they cause problems for
swimmers and factories. I'm kind of curious why did you
choose to study the jellyfish. Yeah, I mean it's true,
and and there's something about what you just said that
(09:50):
made them really fascinating to me, because, um, you know,
you couldn't put polar bears in this like box of like, oh,
they're so you know, impress sieve and and beautiful and
big and they they are this charismatic creature and but
jellys have more subtlety to them. You know, they're undeniably beautiful,
(10:12):
and yet you're right, like they can be lethal and
they can be as you know, a symbol of ecosystem demise.
And there was something about that, the fact that they
kind of walked it back and forth across these lines
in our minds that I found super fascinating. And they're
just such strange creatures too. I know you've written that
they can see light without eyes. Do you do you
(10:34):
mind just taking a minute for our listeners and describe
a little bit of their biology and and and what
some of the more curious things about their bodies that
you've found. Um, yeah, so you know, they are super simple.
They have just like we have three cell layers that
we have an end their deerm and exoderm, which is
like our skin, our outside skin, and then in between
we have this musoderm that holds all our organs and everything,
(10:56):
and jelly fish just don't have that. They have jelly inside.
It's truly it's called mesoglia, and it's a cellular and
so um they have this really cool ability that they
they're like big. They're like a balloon, right, So they
have skin on the outside, skin on the inside, and
then something that they don't have to support metabolically on
(11:19):
the inside. So they get away with being big at
very low metabolic cost. And that's part of what makes
them so successful. And that's why I called the book Spineless,
because they're very spinelessness is actually contributing to their um
increase in abundances in many places in our oceans. I
went to go visit these um scientists in Woodhole who
(11:42):
work at the Marine Biological Laboratory there, and they were
the Navy had given them money to build robotic jellyfish,
and they weren't entirely certain what the Navy wanted to
do with these robotic jelly miss that they were pretty
excited about the opportunity, and so they created this jellyfish
out of silicone and sort of like fake muscles called actuators.
(12:02):
And when they turned it on um it squeezed and
it squeezed shut, and that causes a jet of water
to come out behind it, which pushes on the water
and it moves the jellyfish forward. But then when it
opened back up, it went right back to its starting
place like a yo yo. And they were like, oh,
what's going on, And so they this graduate student was like, well,
you know that peplum around the edge of the jellyfish,
(12:24):
that part that's kind of beautiful that just flops around.
The graduate student was like, I didn't have time to
glue that little flap on the robot. So they pulled
it out of the water and they glued it on.
They put it back in the water, and they turned
it on and it's it's They turned it on and
it squeezed and it jetted forward, and then when it
opened up, it actually continued going forward. And then it
(12:46):
squeezed again and it went forward farther, and then it
opened and it continued going forward. And it turns out
that that little flexible flap is is what drives part
of what drives the jellyfish forward. In the water. It
gives it the push backwards. But then they figured out, um,
it doesn't only give it a push backwards, it actually
creates a low pressure zone in front of the jellyfish.
(13:09):
Like the bending kind of creates the suction in front
of the jellyfish, and that suction pulls the animal forward
through the water. And then they started looking at all
these other animals and if you think about it, everything
in the ocean or in water, then when it moves
like nothing solid, like the way we build both they
all bend. And the reason for that bending is because
(13:33):
it creates this low pressure in front of the animal
that pulls it through the water. So we've thought about,
um swimming completely backwards. It turns out that um, the
forces you know in front of the jelly fish pulling
it are stronger than the forces behind the jellyfish pushing it.
And because we're terrestrial and all we can do is
push backwards in order to go forwards, we just completely
(13:56):
misunderstood swimming for our whole all of subtle antion really
and then, um, yeah, it's a really cool story. All right. Well,
speaking of travel, I know you traveled all the way
to Japan to see the giant jellyfish there, So so
what makes it so extraordinary and why did you make
the trip there to see it? Yeah, this jelly fish
is really really interesting. Um it grows to being five pound,
(14:20):
which is like the size of a refrigerator. Yeah, it's massive,
massive jelly fish, you know. And throughout the twentieth century,
this jellyfish was seen in just off the coast of Japan,
but only about every thirty years. So because the kind
of thing where like a fisherman would tell his son like,
well that you're the giant jellyfish showed up, you know,
(14:41):
look out for them, and then thirty years later the
sun would be like, oh, yeah, this is what my
dad told me about. And then in the twenty one
century they started appearing every year, and not just every year,
but like in enormous numbers, where the entire cy would
be just these huge and they're sort of maroon, these
(15:02):
maroon giant blobs of jellyfish for as far as the
eye could see. And there's pictures of fishing boats with
their nets just the sea of maroon jelly. One fishing
vessel collected so many of these giant jellyfish that it
actually the weight of them in their nets, flips the
boat over and threw the crew into the sea. And
(15:24):
I just want to ask very quickly. You know, for
years people have been saying that jellyfish are gonna be
winners in this world of climate change. But why is
it important that we have a balanced population of jellyfish?
The questions look really complex, and I think that we
have a tendency to look at the ocean is like
this one big place, and in fact, you know, the
ocean is a really uh diverse, dynamic place that has
(15:48):
lots of different ecosystems, lots of latitudes and longitudes, different temperatures,
different salinities and so and different kinds of pressures that
we're putting on the ocean. So in some places is
already jellyfish are dominating the ecosystem. And those are the
places that we should look to to say, like do
we want our oceans in other places to become like that?
(16:10):
And Um, a good example is off the coast in
Namibia where they really really over fished the ocean. Um,
there was not good controls on what was happening. In fact,
Numidia was under the offices of South Africa for a
long time and South Africa didn't monitor what was happening
in Nimidia, and these big commercial ships came in from
other countries and just fished it like crazy and opened
(16:32):
up ecological niches for jellyfish. And it used to be
one of the richest fisheries in the world, where like
a million tons of fish every year could be fished easily,
and then the jellyfish we're able to get a foothold,
and now the biomass is like two to three times
more jellyfish than fish there, and the seals and birds
(16:55):
there's reports of them starving because there's just not enough
fish for them to eat anymore. So the reason why
we want to pay attention to this is because we
could end up with ecosystems where birds and fields are starving,
and I don't think anyone wants that kind of situation.
Big bloom fish jellyfish can also sweep into fish farm
and about a month ago a huge bloom swept into
(17:16):
a fish farm in Scotland and killed like a quarter
or a a million famine overnight. So the yeah, the numbers,
you know, start to add up of the devastation that
jellyfish can cause. Not to mention the sting, the stings
that you know heard us very personally and individually in
(17:37):
the water and emotionally and and all of that. And
our our friend John would have very much appreciated you
having been there to educate him before he jumped in
the water. Do you remember this mango when we were
on a trip and the and the keys and he
we were out in a boat and he looks out
and he says, I don't think those are the kind
of jellyfish that staying. And there was a large school
of them, I guess, and he jumped in the water.
(17:58):
He says, these are the kind of thing, the kind
of thing. So it did not it did not go well.
So mainly this episode is to try to get him
to learn a little bit more and not make the
same mistake. So if you get stung by a jellyfish,
the thing you ushould do is hot water and vinegar. Julie,
this is such a wonderful read. The book is called Spineless,
(18:19):
The Science of Jellyfish in the Art of Growing Up Backbone. Julie,
thanks so much for joining us on Part Time Genius.
Welcome back to Part Time Genius. We're talking squid, octopus
(18:40):
and jellyfish. So we've been chatting octopuses for a while
and we need to move on to squid. But before
we do, why don't we reel off some of our
favorite octopus Definitely? What are some of the weirder ones
you want to talk about? Well, I love Louis. You
know the cantankerous giant pacific octopus we were talking about
also from that article. He was only ex feet but
they can actually grow to be about sixteen ft and
(19:03):
way up to six hundred pounds. Wow. Each arm has
about two hundred and eighty suckers and they lay up
to ninety thousand eggs at a time. Nine eggs, I know,
that's a lot of omelets. Well, one octopus I like,
on the other end of the spectrum is this thing
called the octopus wolfe, which is the world's smallest octopus.
(19:23):
It's like an inch long and ways less than a graham. Yeah.
I guess kind of like kind of like a pocket
octopus exactly, and it's perfect for travel. But that doesn't
mean they're not wildy. So, according to a Newsweek article,
a two thousand four study gave them a six out
of ten on likelihood of escaping a tank. All right, Well,
speaking of tiny octopus, this one's totally weird. It's called
(19:44):
the blanket octopus. And while the females are a tall
and leggy six ft long, the males are only about
an inch tall. How crazy is that? How's that possible?
I have no idea. But their mating technique is equally weird.
So here's how Newsweek described it. To breathe, the male
sticks his specialized mating arm inside the female and breaks
(20:04):
it off. He then swims away with only seven legs
and dies shortly after octopus romance. But the creatures are
even more interesting than that. Actually, well, the female blanket
octopus is is more of a swimmer, so instead of
hiding in caves, will actually swim in the open water, which,
as we've talked about, it is pretty unusual for an octopus.
(20:24):
And it fans out like a giant blanket whenever it
senses a threat. But it's the tiny male that's the
real character. So blanket octopuses are immune to man of
wars things, so when something is attacking a blanket male,
it'll just break off a poisonous tentacle of a Portuguese
man of war and then whip it around like crazy,
you know, the swashbuckle against its enemies. It's I mean,
(20:45):
they're pretty feisty. Actually, well, I do want to come
back to octopuses food and this whole etiquette of throwing
them at red wings games, because there's some strict rules there.
But let's get in the squid. So what are some
of the characteristics of squid. So here, the basic squids
are really good hunters. First of all, I mean, much
like octopus, they've got beaks and radula, so they have
(21:06):
ten arms in total. They actually have eight short arms
around the mouth and then these two long tentacles with suckers,
which are really helpful when they're hunting. Now, unlike octopus,
squids swim in the open ocean, and they're amazing swimmers.
In fact, they've been called the fighter jets of the
cephalopod because they use this water propulsion system to shoot
(21:26):
backwards at these tremendous speeds. Yeah, I've seen that some
consuming speeds of like twenty five miles per hour, which
is stunning because that's almost shark speeds. And I was
actually reading about Japanese flying squid. Have you heard of them?
I didn't realize the flying squid word thing. I don't know.
I missed that. Yeah, so they get confused for flying
fish sometimes, although flying fish can move that way for
great lens. Well, you know, these squid can only jump
(21:49):
out of the water for twenty stretches then they kind
of tire out. It seems more like a cool party
trick than anything that's wise in terms of evolution. So
why do you say that, Well, they accidentally jump onto
fishing boats all the time, and birds like the red
footed booby will just pluck them out of the air
for meals. You know, it's kind of a weird question.
But how do they see when they're flying backwards? Is
(22:11):
that why they end up on the boats because they
can't see where they're going or what? I think it's
more that they can't exactly like switch directions while they're
in the air. But from what I read, their eyes, tentacles,
and beak are all at the back, and as they're flying,
they have a pretty good view and they'll actually pull
their fins and adjust their tentacles to make a smoother
dive back into the water. There's still a lot of
study that has to be done on them, and that's
(22:32):
actually something that seems to come up a lot, Like
I read that one of the ways people catch octopus
is that they just place a little basket next to
an octopus cave or dwelling, and then octopus might just
snuggle into the basket and then fishermen can pull that up.
But catching enormous squid isn't that easy. And clearly there's
a fascination with the giant squid, which has been pretty elusive. Yeah,
it's funny to think about how that misunderstanding about giant
(22:54):
squid and just not being able to observe their behavior.
It's kind of made them these monsters of the sea.
I mean, you see their written about in literature and
Jules Verne's twenty thou Leagues under the Sea. You know,
it's this monstrous squid with a taste for human flesh
and attacks the submarine and everything. And he Actually I
was reading this article about the cracking and wired it
was called fantastically wrong and I didn't realize this, but
(23:16):
early Europeans assumed that all creatures on Earth had a
counterpart in the sea. So there were these strange beasts
like sea rhinos and even things like see bishops. You know,
the seafaring counterparts to the human land bishops. But the
descriptions of the crack and it's just crazy. So this
is from seventeen seventy five when an historian named Eric Pontpain.
(23:37):
He wrote in the Natural History of Norway, the beast
is round, flat and full of arms, the largest and
most surprising of all animal creations. He then claimed to
have talked to a number of different fishermen and all
of them gave the exact same description, including that the
squid's back is a mile and a half in circumference,
the various tentacles could be mistaken for islands. And the
(24:00):
funny thing is that there's this second mythical sea creatures
that gets described, and it says, um, the island whale
that's so big, sailors mistake it for land, And when
the sailors set shore and build fire on it, that's
when the beast awakens and drags them to their doom.
So most people assume that the crack and descriptions are
exaggerations of the giant squid that some fishermen must have seen,
(24:22):
which can be at least forty three ft long, which
is huge. Those the article reveals both the colossal squid
and the giant squid are you know, very lackadaisical and
by one estimate, use up to six hundred times less
energy than similarly sized predators. So supposedly they just hang
out waiting for prey instead of actively chasing anything. And
(24:42):
what's the difference between the colossal and giant squid. Well,
it's likely that the giant squid is longer than the colossal,
but the colossal is probably heavier and has bigger eyes.
And so giant squids also have teeth on their tentacles,
which of course is terrifying to think about, while colossal
squids have show art pokes that swivel on their tentacles.
So I mean, I guess it's just like a different
(25:04):
sort of terrifying. Well, I'm glad they're kind of lazy,
but it's also a little disappointing, like you want them
to have more personality than that. So I did read
about squid and whale battles, which are amazing, all right,
So why why is that? So? I always wondered why
colossal squid have such big eyes. It basically comes down
to whales, So like squid have the biggest eyes on
the planet, measuring over eleven inches in diameter, which is
(25:26):
essentially the size of a dinner plate. But the reason
is that in murky and weak light in the ocean,
you need a big eye to pick up light. But
a biologist at Duke modeled the eye and realized that
a bigger eye isn't actually good at seeing all objects.
It's just a lot better at seeing really big objects
coming at you. And according to Scientific American, that means
the squid can spot whales at a dark depths or
(25:49):
more hopefully enough space that they can shoot out a
cloud of ink and flee. So what about the whales though,
So what's interesting is that they don't actually need great
eyesight because they're all using sonar. But the way the
whales catch the squid is amazing. So for smaller prey,
they'll actually use these ultrasound bursts. Like the whales emit
these noises and it knocks out prey and send schools
(26:10):
of fish swimming. But when the scientists, said woods Holds,
studied the creatures, they realized that squids don't react to
these sonic bursts at all, So instead the whales use
this incredible twisting motion to go after them. Basically they
like wriggle and twist their bodies as they attack, and
that creates this giant, crazy vacuum which pulls in the
squid so that they can just lurk them up from
(26:31):
a distance. And so does that always work? No? I mean,
sometimes the giant and colossal squid are big enough to
fight back, and as Life Science points out, you can
find sperm whales with suction scars on their skin, and
that's this obvious mark of a squid that got away.
All right, Well, before we get off the squid, I
feel like we should again mention a few of our favorites.
I think I like the it was called the cock
(26:51):
eyed squid, you know, just because he's so funny looking.
So their left eye is usually twice as big as
the right eye is just kind of comical looking, honestly,
so it actually bulges out of the squid's head. All right,
So what's yours? Oh that's great. So my favorite is
definitely the vampire tooth is in for analis, which is
essentially the vampire squid from Hell. That's how it translates.
(27:12):
But everything about it is wrong. So starting with the
fact that it's actually a big woos. When it senses danger,
it bites off one of its bioluminescent arms, which then
floats away, and that sends the predator in the wrong direction.
But it just has to keep gnawing off arms to
the data backers. And also, the vampire squid from Hell
is a misnomer because it's actually an octopus. The vampire
(27:35):
squid from Hell I think he went on that one.
That one's pretty good. All right. So there's a lot
we won't be able to get to today, but but
I know some of that will get say, for an
episode on technologies we're stealing from the Animal Kingdom. We've
talked about doing an episode like that. You know, specifically
how cuttle fish and squid both camouflage and communicate through
changing their skin colors. There's actually a super elaborate code
(27:56):
that some squid use. But I also know we want
to return to the octopus us for for a bit
before we move on, yeah, and talk about octopus cities
and red wings etiquette. But let's talk about after a
little break. Welcome back to part time Genius. So will
(28:22):
I know you got pretty excited about this octopus community
we're reading about. I want to give us a rundown
on why an octopus city is so exciting. Yeah, that's right.
Mainly because it's called Octlantis, which is such a great
pame and it's a big deal. Partially because the gloomy octopus,
you know, a k a. The Sydney octopus, is mostly
known for being a loner. But the reason this was exciting,
(28:43):
and we saw this in an article in Courts, was
that the creatures were filmed exhibiting complex social behaviors that
you wouldn't imagine from a solitary animal. It's funny because
in two thousand nine there was another of these colonies
found called Octopolus, very different than actlantis, and and scientists
assumed it is this total anomaly. So it's pretty cool.
I feel like they're going to run out of octopon names.
(29:04):
But what actually happens there, Well, the octopus interact and
they chase each other around, and at any time there
are two to fifteen octopus and it has to be
a pretty special situation, like you know, there has to
be a good stock of food coming through pretty regularly,
and not that many habitable places in the surrounding seabed.
That makes them want to be there, and you know,
(29:25):
but while the gloomy octopus are solitary, it seems like
communities like this could only exist if octopus had lived
and interacted with one another for generations. Well, I do
feel like Octopus Village should be like a Nickelodeon show
where totally one flucky octopus and a bunch of sarcastic
gloomy ones. But even though for most of the show
we've been talking about living octopus, I found a couple
(29:46):
of things that we're fascinating about dead ones and what's that. Well,
no one pulled the research for me on how Greeks
cook octopus, and it was kind of fascinating. So the
diver slice the nerve between the eyes that instantly kills
the beasts, and it's generally not a long protracted battle.
But unlike fish, which you'd grilled right away, the octopus
is mostly water, so you really have to dry it out.
(30:08):
Like they'll beat the carcass up to a hundred times
on a rock to ring out the water, and then
they put the octopus on a clothesline all day and
once it's dried then you can grill it or else
you just get something that's super mushy. But this Greek
grill master told NPR quote, in the old days, when
there weren't freezers, people here used to sun the octopus
for days until it was tiny and fit into a
(30:28):
little caraft, but expanded to its original size when cooked.
Isn't that crazy? It's so weird. Yeah, but it also
feels maybe a little bit morbid. So why don't we
skip to this Red Wings fact that you were you
were talking about before. Well, I'm not sure it's any
less morbid, but we both know about the Red Wings
and this legend of the octopus and how people started
lobbying dead creatures on the rink after games because the
(30:51):
Red Wings at one time needed eight games to sweep
the series, and it kind of became a thing. But
apparently there's an art to it, really, alright, So so
what's the art to throwing the to pus? Well, the
New York Times did this great piece on it, and
the trick to tossing a large octopus onto the rink
is to boil it with wine and lemon juice or
else it's gonna stink. Also, it has to be boiled
(31:11):
like a well boiled octopus can travel a hundred feet
and as they put it, bounce and rolls satisfactorily or
across the ice when it lands. It's amazing what they
go through just to make this happens. All right, So
what happens if it's a rare, like a medium rare
octopus instead of well boiled. Yeah, those just splatz, which
seems equally amusing. But the article goes into these mistakes
(31:32):
that rookies tend to make. So you have to grab
the octopus arms in the middle, and you've got to
keep the head back and toss it from the knees
and what they describe as this over exaggerated grenade toss.
According to the piece, if you try to throw it
like a baseball or by the tips of the tentacles,
octopus parts are going to end up on your neighbor.
But the absolutely best part of the article was how
(31:52):
people sneak the octopus in Because while it's this beloved tradition,
management doesn't love dealing with the octopus. So people have
all these smuggling tricks, like one guy he'll wrap it
in a zip lock and wear them like a pot belly,
and others try to sneak them under really tall hats,
which just feels kind of crazy because, according to the Times,
the biggest octopus to land on the rink was thirty pounds. Wow,
(32:15):
it's an impressive pop. And you know, while it isn't
good for the octopus, I guess it is good for
octopus sales. I read somewhere that they actually double in
Detroit during the hockey playoffs. Yeah, that's right. I didn't
sneak a full grown octopus in here, but I did
sneak in a few extra facts. You ready for the
fact off? You know? I am all right? Well, squid
(32:43):
are easy to digest from many ocean creatures. The one
part that isn't is their beak. Apparently, beaks often collect
inside other sea creatures. Have you heard of Kimberrella? I
can't say that. I've heard of tiny mollis that lived
over five million years ago and is the earliest known
ancestor of the squid. Also, doesn't it sound like she
(33:04):
left seven slippers behind at Prince Charming's palace? She sounds beautiful, Kimbarella?
All right? So did you know that human trash can
occasionally be good for octopus that have no shelter? On
a dive off of the Puget Sound, one scientist observed
eight beer bottles, all with tiny red octopus in them.
I mean these beer bottles had occupancy, right, that's a
(33:25):
good right. Have you heard of the octopo tooth, this deletron?
I have not. It's a squid that doesn't have sex organs.
So the males have to put these sperm packets on
the side of their potential mates for later fertilization. But
because their eyesight isn't great in the cloudy waters, they
just tag these onto any squid they can hope with
a few of them might be females. So alright, well,
(33:46):
my favorite squid discovery might be the Grimaldi scaled squid.
I guess Prince Albert, the first of Monaco was an
amateur squid enthusiast, and I didn't remember this story from
mental flaws, but apparently he'd sit through what he called
the precious regurgit patians of sperm wells for specif and
because the scales of the squid were so flashy and luxurious,
he named the squid after the house he belonged to,
(34:09):
the House of Grimaldi luxury squid. I like that, Why
don't you take the Crown today, I can do that.
Thank you all right. Well, remember, if we miss some
of your favorite octopus or squid facts, be sure to
share them with us on our fact hot line that's
one eight four four pet Genius, or by reaching out
on Facebook or Twitter. And if you enjoy the show,
help us get a word out by reviewing us on iTunes.
(34:30):
You can also email us at part Time Genius at
how stuff works dot com. Thanks so much for listening.
Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production
(34:51):
of How Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible without several
brilliant people who do the important things we couldn't even
begin to understand. Tristan McNeil does the editing thing. Noel
Brown made the theme song and does the mixy mixy
sound thing. Jerry Rowland does the exact producer thing. Gay
Bluesier is our lead researcher, with support from the research
Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams and Eves.
Jeff Cook gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
(35:14):
If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe.
And if you really really like what you've heard, maybe
you could leave a good review for us. Do we
do we forget Jason? Jason who
Guess what, Mango? What's that? Will? All right? So I've
been looking at octopus facts all week, and I hope
you have too, because that's the episode we're recording right now.
But did you know that they love puzzles like they
actually kind of need them. I mean, it's not surprising
that they're smart. They're basically a giant heads with too
many legs. So I was reading about Louis the octopus.
He's a giant Pacific octopus who lives at an aquarium
(00:21):
in Cornwall, England. So he's this beautiful six ft wide
creature and he insists on cuddling with his Mr. Potato
Head toy, which sounds cute. It is, but Louis gets
really aggressive if you try to take it away from him,
so don't try to do that. I mean, Luis needs
to learn to share. So is he just rearranging the toy? Well,
he does fiddle with the parts and and supposedly the
(00:41):
bright colors are also stimulating. But the most appealing thing
for him is that the scientists fill the tiny toy
with crab meat or smelt. They just stuff it through
the arm and the headholes and it's a bit of
a puzzle. I mean, it's fun for Louis and other
octopus to figure out how to get those treats. But
reading about Louis made me wonder how smart are squid
and octopus? What are the major differences between them? And
(01:04):
how exactly do you stuff a smelt into a potato head?
And that's exactly what today's show is all about. It's
(01:29):
alp in to part time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and
as always I'm joined by my good friend Manuesh I
ticket off and sitting behind the soundproof glass wearing his
Octopus Give the Best Hugs t shirt is our friend
and producer Tristan McNeil. He'd been staring at that thing
on eBay for weeks. Tobago, Today's show is a little
all over the place. I know, we wanted to chat
about squid and octopus. Yeah, that's right, but since we're
(01:52):
covering the sea, I thought would be fun to slip
in a quick chat with one of our favorite authors,
Julie Burwald. She wrote this lovely new book called Spineless.
It's all about jellyfish and and though octopus and squid
and jellyfish aren't exactly the same thing, it did feel
like a delicious seafood salad of an episode. But you
don't even eat octopus, maga. I know, you know, I
actually used to eat it, But then we did this
(02:14):
article on octopus and metal flass and they just seemed
too smart. And also it compared the creatures two kittens. Actually,
I pulled up this quote because I thought it was
so funny. Here to the chagrin of some scientists, these
cephalopods can run. As a pre vet student, Alexa Warburton
had the tricky task of scooping octopuses out of their tanks.
The stubborn animals would hide or squeeze into the tanks
(02:35):
cracks to avoid being removed. As a last ditch effort,
some octopuses would trampoline off the net, leap to the floor,
and take off zig zagging around the lab. It's like quote,
chasing a cat, Warburton told a Ryan Magazine. Yeah, I mean,
I feel like hurting octopus is the new herding cats.
But that there was a been in the story where
this octopus actually escaped into a scientists library, and when
(02:58):
the scientist walked in, he saw the octopus going through
each of his books, just turning the page away. Is
that actually true? Yeah, we fact checked it. I mean,
there's certainly escape artists, and they're kind of destructive. To
Scientific American reporter that two workers at the Santa Monica
Pier Aquarium walked in to find two gallons of seawater
soaking the floor of their new space. They try to
(03:20):
figure out what had happened, and they realized these two
octopus had quote disassembled a water recycling valve and redirected
the two to spew water out of the tank for
about ten hours. There must have been so much water
it ridiculous. But I mean that seems more playful than
means spirited, right, And obviously we know that octopus is
play not just from your Lewis and Mr Potato Head example,
(03:41):
but also because octopuses have been observed in boring situations
amusing themselves. So there was this one story I read
where this octopus and a tank was given like an
empty floating pill bottle, I think, and after enough time
it started flicking it into a jet of water in
the aquarium and waiting for it to come back, then
doing it again and again in the scientists claimed it
was like watching a kid throw a ball against the wall,
(04:03):
but it did make me wonder how smarter octopus? And
so what did you find out? That octopus aren't really
very cooperative subjects? I mean, obviously they've got all these
skills right there, super strong, they can hide. Sometimes they
mimic other forms, and and you're talking specifically about the
mimic octopus. That's one of the types of octopus. Right. Yeah,
they're masters of disguise and changing their shapes, but they're
(04:25):
also good at going through mazes and solving little puzzles.
But all of that makes them really difficult to study.
So this is from a report I saw in the Guardian.
Apparently this paper tried to teach three octopus to pull
a lever for food. And we've seen this with you know,
monkeys and rats and other creatures. And first of all,
the octopus in the study have the best, most dignified names.
(04:46):
What's that They were called Albert, Bertram, and Charles. That's
what I would have named my octopus. That that is dignified.
So Albert and Bertram are really good subjects. They pulled
the levers in a quote reasonably consistent manner. According to
the study. It Charles, it turns out, is a total terror.
He tries to pull a light that's suspended above the
water into the tank. He squirts water at anyone who
(05:08):
gets close. He's basically taunting the scientists, and then he
ends the experiment by breaking off the levers so they
couldn't run the experiment anymore. I mean, Charles is totally gangster.
I mean, I have to admit I kind of like
Charles amusing to watch him. I feel like maybe there's
a whole episode to be done on octopus is behaving badly.
I mean they can undo latches and untied knots. I
(05:29):
even saw a story where scientists were complaining that octopus
would leave their lab tanks at night and then go
raid the neighboring tanks for food. There was one octopus
who was squirting water at the light switch to turn
it off, and then he short circuited the power. I mean,
these are these horror stories that come out, and clearly
they're kind of smart. But I wonder if we think
octopuses are especially smart because they look like, I don't know,
(05:52):
like aliens really, I mean they are alien like. I
don't think we'd be doing this episode if they weren't,
and their entire class of mollus is called sephalopods, which
means head foot. They're all a bunch of head feet.
And to be clear, that category isn't just octopus and
includes squid and cuttle fish and nautilus is But there's
a big debate about whether they're really that smart. The
(06:14):
octopus have about a half billion neurons, and that's particularly
amazing for a creature without a backbone. But you know,
in reality, it puts them in the range of dogs.
So even though they might play with a Rubik's cube,
but it's not like they're consistently solving them or anything,
at least I haven't seen one. There's this old Burden
Ernie sketch from Sesame Street where Ernie walks in on
(06:34):
Burt and he says, that's amazing, Butt, you're playing checkers
with your pigeon, and Bert kind of whispers something like, Ernie,
it's not that impressive. Of the seven times we've played,
he's only one twice. I think one thing I read
that really convinced me of their intelligence was that when
they're faced with the problem, they actually changed strategies. How
do you mean so scientific? American pointed this out, but
(06:55):
Apparently octopuses are a little lazy, Like, they're obviously quite strong,
and if they're given muscles or clams, they'll go for
the muscles just because the meat is easier to get
to and the shells take less effort. But if the
clams are served on a half shell, you know, if
they're at a cocktail party or something, they'll go for
the tastier meteor options. But here's what's interesting. Right when
scientists passed the long muscles, but whyed a few of
(07:17):
the shells shut? The octopus tried to open it using
one method They can use their arms, but then they
also have this beak that they can use to chip
away at the shell. And then when that took too long,
they drilled a little hole in and injected a poison
to weaken the creature's defenses. Like all octopus and cuttlefish
have a poison reserve. But the octopus would use one
method and if that proved futile, they switched to a
(07:37):
different one. And the author's point was most creatures, when
they fail, they just keep trying to do the same
thing over and over rather than adjust their approach. That
is pretty cool, and I know we're going to get
into the giant squid and cracking and how octopus and
squid are different. But before we do, let's chat a
little bit more about the octopus. So what's one of
the more surprising things you learned about them and doing
your research this week. Uh, that they're not good swimmers,
(08:00):
I think was interesting to me, and the reasons even weirder.
It's all because they have three hearts, So they're not
good swimmers because they have Yeah. Actually that was surprising
to me too. I mean I read in smith sony
and that two of the hearts worked to move blood
beyond their gills. And obviously there's so many parts of
the octopus I didn't realize beaks and gills and ragul
which is kind of like a tiny drill for a tongue. Yeah,
(08:22):
and their penis is on one of their arms, which
I also never realized. I mean, I guess that's a
little weird too. You know that while some octopus mount
their partners, others will just stick their penis arm into
a cave where a female octopus is hiding, and so
they made in what's called the distance position. That's so ridiculous.
But we were talking about the three hearts. All right,
(08:43):
So the two hearts move blood beyond the gills, and
then the third heart is exclusively for pumping blood to organs.
But when they're swimming, they actually turned that heart off.
It stops beating entirely. So they get completely exhausted when
they move that way, and they mostly choose a walk
or crawl instead. But I like the idea that octopuses
actually enjoy long walks on the beach. But there's clearly
(09:06):
a ton more to say about these bizarre and wonderful creatures.
But I also want to get Julie on the phone
to talk about jellyfish. So how about we take a
little break for that and then we dive back in.
All right, let's do it, Mango. We've got a special
guest on the line with us today. She's the author
of a fascinating new book called Spineless, The Science of
(09:27):
Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone. Julie Berwald.
Welcome to part time Genius. Thank you so much for
having me so, Julie. Jellyfish are obviously these simple and
beautiful but also reviled creatures, and they cause problems for
swimmers and factories. I'm kind of curious why did you
choose to study the jellyfish. Yeah, I mean it's true,
and and there's something about what you just said that
(09:50):
made them really fascinating to me, because, um, you know,
you couldn't put polar bears in this like box of like, oh,
they're so you know, impress sieve and and beautiful and
big and they they are this charismatic creature and but
jellys have more subtlety to them. You know, they're undeniably beautiful,
(10:12):
and yet you're right, like they can be lethal and
they can be as you know, a symbol of ecosystem demise.
And there was something about that, the fact that they
kind of walked it back and forth across these lines
in our minds that I found super fascinating. And they're
just such strange creatures too. I know you've written that
they can see light without eyes. Do you do you
(10:34):
mind just taking a minute for our listeners and describe
a little bit of their biology and and and what
some of the more curious things about their bodies that
you've found. Um, yeah, so you know, they are super simple.
They have just like we have three cell layers that
we have an end their deerm and exoderm, which is
like our skin, our outside skin, and then in between
we have this musoderm that holds all our organs and everything,
(10:56):
and jelly fish just don't have that. They have jelly inside.
It's truly it's called mesoglia, and it's a cellular and
so um they have this really cool ability that they
they're like big. They're like a balloon, right, So they
have skin on the outside, skin on the inside, and
then something that they don't have to support metabolically on
(11:19):
the inside. So they get away with being big at
very low metabolic cost. And that's part of what makes
them so successful. And that's why I called the book Spineless,
because they're very spinelessness is actually contributing to their um
increase in abundances in many places in our oceans. I
went to go visit these um scientists in Woodhole who
(11:42):
work at the Marine Biological Laboratory there, and they were
the Navy had given them money to build robotic jellyfish,
and they weren't entirely certain what the Navy wanted to
do with these robotic jelly miss that they were pretty
excited about the opportunity, and so they created this jellyfish
out of silicone and sort of like fake muscles called actuators.
(12:02):
And when they turned it on um it squeezed and
it squeezed shut, and that causes a jet of water
to come out behind it, which pushes on the water
and it moves the jellyfish forward. But then when it
opened back up, it went right back to its starting
place like a yo yo. And they were like, oh,
what's going on, And so they this graduate student was like, well,
you know that peplum around the edge of the jellyfish,
(12:24):
that part that's kind of beautiful that just flops around.
The graduate student was like, I didn't have time to
glue that little flap on the robot. So they pulled
it out of the water and they glued it on.
They put it back in the water, and they turned
it on and it's it's They turned it on and
it squeezed and it jetted forward, and then when it
opened up, it actually continued going forward. And then it
(12:46):
squeezed again and it went forward farther, and then it
opened and it continued going forward. And it turns out
that that little flexible flap is is what drives part
of what drives the jellyfish forward. In the water. It
gives it the push backwards. But then they figured out, um,
it doesn't only give it a push backwards, it actually
creates a low pressure zone in front of the jellyfish.
(13:09):
Like the bending kind of creates the suction in front
of the jellyfish, and that suction pulls the animal forward
through the water. And then they started looking at all
these other animals and if you think about it, everything
in the ocean or in water, then when it moves
like nothing solid, like the way we build both they
all bend. And the reason for that bending is because
(13:33):
it creates this low pressure in front of the animal
that pulls it through the water. So we've thought about,
um swimming completely backwards. It turns out that um, the
forces you know in front of the jelly fish pulling
it are stronger than the forces behind the jellyfish pushing it.
And because we're terrestrial and all we can do is
push backwards in order to go forwards, we just completely
(13:56):
misunderstood swimming for our whole all of subtle antion really
and then, um, yeah, it's a really cool story. All right. Well,
speaking of travel, I know you traveled all the way
to Japan to see the giant jellyfish there, So so
what makes it so extraordinary and why did you make
the trip there to see it? Yeah, this jelly fish
is really really interesting. Um it grows to being five pound,
(14:20):
which is like the size of a refrigerator. Yeah, it's massive,
massive jelly fish, you know. And throughout the twentieth century,
this jellyfish was seen in just off the coast of Japan,
but only about every thirty years. So because the kind
of thing where like a fisherman would tell his son like,
well that you're the giant jellyfish showed up, you know,
(14:41):
look out for them, and then thirty years later the
sun would be like, oh, yeah, this is what my
dad told me about. And then in the twenty one
century they started appearing every year, and not just every year,
but like in enormous numbers, where the entire cy would
be just these huge and they're sort of maroon, these
(15:02):
maroon giant blobs of jellyfish for as far as the
eye could see. And there's pictures of fishing boats with
their nets just the sea of maroon jelly. One fishing
vessel collected so many of these giant jellyfish that it
actually the weight of them in their nets, flips the
boat over and threw the crew into the sea. And
(15:24):
I just want to ask very quickly. You know, for
years people have been saying that jellyfish are gonna be
winners in this world of climate change. But why is
it important that we have a balanced population of jellyfish?
The questions look really complex, and I think that we
have a tendency to look at the ocean is like
this one big place, and in fact, you know, the
ocean is a really uh diverse, dynamic place that has
(15:48):
lots of different ecosystems, lots of latitudes and longitudes, different temperatures,
different salinities and so and different kinds of pressures that
we're putting on the ocean. So in some places is
already jellyfish are dominating the ecosystem. And those are the
places that we should look to to say, like do
we want our oceans in other places to become like that?
(16:10):
And Um, a good example is off the coast in
Namibia where they really really over fished the ocean. Um,
there was not good controls on what was happening. In fact,
Numidia was under the offices of South Africa for a
long time and South Africa didn't monitor what was happening
in Nimidia, and these big commercial ships came in from
other countries and just fished it like crazy and opened
(16:32):
up ecological niches for jellyfish. And it used to be
one of the richest fisheries in the world, where like
a million tons of fish every year could be fished easily,
and then the jellyfish we're able to get a foothold,
and now the biomass is like two to three times
more jellyfish than fish there, and the seals and birds
(16:55):
there's reports of them starving because there's just not enough
fish for them to eat anymore. So the reason why
we want to pay attention to this is because we
could end up with ecosystems where birds and fields are starving,
and I don't think anyone wants that kind of situation.
Big bloom fish jellyfish can also sweep into fish farm
and about a month ago a huge bloom swept into
(17:16):
a fish farm in Scotland and killed like a quarter
or a a million famine overnight. So the yeah, the numbers,
you know, start to add up of the devastation that
jellyfish can cause. Not to mention the sting, the stings
that you know heard us very personally and individually in
(17:37):
the water and emotionally and and all of that. And
our our friend John would have very much appreciated you
having been there to educate him before he jumped in
the water. Do you remember this mango when we were
on a trip and the and the keys and he
we were out in a boat and he looks out
and he says, I don't think those are the kind
of jellyfish that staying. And there was a large school
of them, I guess, and he jumped in the water.
(17:58):
He says, these are the kind of thing, the kind
of thing. So it did not it did not go well.
So mainly this episode is to try to get him
to learn a little bit more and not make the
same mistake. So if you get stung by a jellyfish,
the thing you ushould do is hot water and vinegar. Julie,
this is such a wonderful read. The book is called Spineless,
(18:19):
The Science of Jellyfish in the Art of Growing Up Backbone. Julie,
thanks so much for joining us on Part Time Genius.
Welcome back to Part Time Genius. We're talking squid, octopus
(18:40):
and jellyfish. So we've been chatting octopuses for a while
and we need to move on to squid. But before
we do, why don't we reel off some of our
favorite octopus Definitely? What are some of the weirder ones
you want to talk about? Well, I love Louis. You
know the cantankerous giant pacific octopus we were talking about
also from that article. He was only ex feet but
they can actually grow to be about sixteen ft and
(19:03):
way up to six hundred pounds. Wow. Each arm has
about two hundred and eighty suckers and they lay up
to ninety thousand eggs at a time. Nine eggs, I know,
that's a lot of omelets. Well, one octopus I like,
on the other end of the spectrum is this thing
called the octopus wolfe, which is the world's smallest octopus.
(19:23):
It's like an inch long and ways less than a graham. Yeah.
I guess kind of like kind of like a pocket
octopus exactly, and it's perfect for travel. But that doesn't
mean they're not wildy. So, according to a Newsweek article,
a two thousand four study gave them a six out
of ten on likelihood of escaping a tank. All right, Well,
speaking of tiny octopus, this one's totally weird. It's called
(19:44):
the blanket octopus. And while the females are a tall
and leggy six ft long, the males are only about
an inch tall. How crazy is that? How's that possible?
I have no idea. But their mating technique is equally weird.
So here's how Newsweek described it. To breathe, the male
sticks his specialized mating arm inside the female and breaks
(20:04):
it off. He then swims away with only seven legs
and dies shortly after octopus romance. But the creatures are
even more interesting than that. Actually, well, the female blanket
octopus is is more of a swimmer, so instead of
hiding in caves, will actually swim in the open water, which,
as we've talked about, it is pretty unusual for an octopus.
(20:24):
And it fans out like a giant blanket whenever it
senses a threat. But it's the tiny male that's the
real character. So blanket octopuses are immune to man of
wars things, so when something is attacking a blanket male,
it'll just break off a poisonous tentacle of a Portuguese
man of war and then whip it around like crazy,
you know, the swashbuckle against its enemies. It's I mean,
(20:45):
they're pretty feisty. Actually, well, I do want to come
back to octopuses food and this whole etiquette of throwing
them at red wings games, because there's some strict rules there.
But let's get in the squid. So what are some
of the characteristics of squid. So here, the basic squids
are really good hunters. First of all, I mean, much
like octopus, they've got beaks and radula, so they have
(21:06):
ten arms in total. They actually have eight short arms
around the mouth and then these two long tentacles with suckers,
which are really helpful when they're hunting. Now, unlike octopus,
squids swim in the open ocean, and they're amazing swimmers.
In fact, they've been called the fighter jets of the
cephalopod because they use this water propulsion system to shoot
(21:26):
backwards at these tremendous speeds. Yeah, I've seen that some
consuming speeds of like twenty five miles per hour, which
is stunning because that's almost shark speeds. And I was
actually reading about Japanese flying squid. Have you heard of them?
I didn't realize the flying squid word thing. I don't know.
I missed that. Yeah, so they get confused for flying
fish sometimes, although flying fish can move that way for
great lens. Well, you know, these squid can only jump
(21:49):
out of the water for twenty stretches then they kind
of tire out. It seems more like a cool party
trick than anything that's wise in terms of evolution. So
why do you say that, Well, they accidentally jump onto
fishing boats all the time, and birds like the red
footed booby will just pluck them out of the air
for meals. You know, it's kind of a weird question.
But how do they see when they're flying backwards? Is
(22:11):
that why they end up on the boats because they
can't see where they're going or what? I think it's
more that they can't exactly like switch directions while they're
in the air. But from what I read, their eyes, tentacles,
and beak are all at the back, and as they're flying,
they have a pretty good view and they'll actually pull
their fins and adjust their tentacles to make a smoother
dive back into the water. There's still a lot of
study that has to be done on them, and that's
(22:32):
actually something that seems to come up a lot, Like
I read that one of the ways people catch octopus
is that they just place a little basket next to
an octopus cave or dwelling, and then octopus might just
snuggle into the basket and then fishermen can pull that up.
But catching enormous squid isn't that easy. And clearly there's
a fascination with the giant squid, which has been pretty elusive. Yeah,
it's funny to think about how that misunderstanding about giant
(22:54):
squid and just not being able to observe their behavior.
It's kind of made them these monsters of the sea.
I mean, you see their written about in literature and
Jules Verne's twenty thou Leagues under the Sea. You know,
it's this monstrous squid with a taste for human flesh
and attacks the submarine and everything. And he Actually I
was reading this article about the cracking and wired it
was called fantastically wrong and I didn't realize this, but
(23:16):
early Europeans assumed that all creatures on Earth had a
counterpart in the sea. So there were these strange beasts
like sea rhinos and even things like see bishops. You know,
the seafaring counterparts to the human land bishops. But the
descriptions of the crack and it's just crazy. So this
is from seventeen seventy five when an historian named Eric Pontpain.
(23:37):
He wrote in the Natural History of Norway, the beast
is round, flat and full of arms, the largest and
most surprising of all animal creations. He then claimed to
have talked to a number of different fishermen and all
of them gave the exact same description, including that the
squid's back is a mile and a half in circumference,
the various tentacles could be mistaken for islands. And the
(24:00):
funny thing is that there's this second mythical sea creatures
that gets described, and it says, um, the island whale
that's so big, sailors mistake it for land, And when
the sailors set shore and build fire on it, that's
when the beast awakens and drags them to their doom.
So most people assume that the crack and descriptions are
exaggerations of the giant squid that some fishermen must have seen,
(24:22):
which can be at least forty three ft long, which
is huge. Those the article reveals both the colossal squid
and the giant squid are you know, very lackadaisical and
by one estimate, use up to six hundred times less
energy than similarly sized predators. So supposedly they just hang
out waiting for prey instead of actively chasing anything. And
(24:42):
what's the difference between the colossal and giant squid. Well,
it's likely that the giant squid is longer than the colossal,
but the colossal is probably heavier and has bigger eyes.
And so giant squids also have teeth on their tentacles,
which of course is terrifying to think about, while colossal
squids have show art pokes that swivel on their tentacles.
So I mean, I guess it's just like a different
(25:04):
sort of terrifying. Well, I'm glad they're kind of lazy,
but it's also a little disappointing, like you want them
to have more personality than that. So I did read
about squid and whale battles, which are amazing, all right,
So why why is that? So? I always wondered why
colossal squid have such big eyes. It basically comes down
to whales, So like squid have the biggest eyes on
the planet, measuring over eleven inches in diameter, which is
(25:26):
essentially the size of a dinner plate. But the reason
is that in murky and weak light in the ocean,
you need a big eye to pick up light. But
a biologist at Duke modeled the eye and realized that
a bigger eye isn't actually good at seeing all objects.
It's just a lot better at seeing really big objects
coming at you. And according to Scientific American, that means
the squid can spot whales at a dark depths or
(25:49):
more hopefully enough space that they can shoot out a
cloud of ink and flee. So what about the whales though,
So what's interesting is that they don't actually need great
eyesight because they're all using sonar. But the way the
whales catch the squid is amazing. So for smaller prey,
they'll actually use these ultrasound bursts. Like the whales emit
these noises and it knocks out prey and send schools
(26:10):
of fish swimming. But when the scientists, said woods Holds,
studied the creatures, they realized that squids don't react to
these sonic bursts at all, So instead the whales use
this incredible twisting motion to go after them. Basically they
like wriggle and twist their bodies as they attack, and
that creates this giant, crazy vacuum which pulls in the
squid so that they can just lurk them up from
(26:31):
a distance. And so does that always work? No? I mean,
sometimes the giant and colossal squid are big enough to
fight back, and as Life Science points out, you can
find sperm whales with suction scars on their skin, and
that's this obvious mark of a squid that got away.
All right, Well, before we get off the squid, I
feel like we should again mention a few of our favorites.
I think I like the it was called the cock
(26:51):
eyed squid, you know, just because he's so funny looking.
So their left eye is usually twice as big as
the right eye is just kind of comical looking, honestly,
so it actually bulges out of the squid's head. All right,
So what's yours? Oh that's great. So my favorite is
definitely the vampire tooth is in for analis, which is
essentially the vampire squid from Hell. That's how it translates.
(27:12):
But everything about it is wrong. So starting with the
fact that it's actually a big woos. When it senses danger,
it bites off one of its bioluminescent arms, which then
floats away, and that sends the predator in the wrong direction.
But it just has to keep gnawing off arms to
the data backers. And also, the vampire squid from Hell
is a misnomer because it's actually an octopus. The vampire
(27:35):
squid from Hell I think he went on that one.
That one's pretty good. All right. So there's a lot
we won't be able to get to today, but but
I know some of that will get say, for an
episode on technologies we're stealing from the Animal Kingdom. We've
talked about doing an episode like that. You know, specifically
how cuttle fish and squid both camouflage and communicate through
changing their skin colors. There's actually a super elaborate code
(27:56):
that some squid use. But I also know we want
to return to the octopus us for for a bit
before we move on, yeah, and talk about octopus cities
and red wings etiquette. But let's talk about after a
little break. Welcome back to part time Genius. So will
(28:22):
I know you got pretty excited about this octopus community
we're reading about. I want to give us a rundown
on why an octopus city is so exciting. Yeah, that's right.
Mainly because it's called Octlantis, which is such a great
pame and it's a big deal. Partially because the gloomy octopus,
you know, a k a. The Sydney octopus, is mostly
known for being a loner. But the reason this was exciting,
(28:43):
and we saw this in an article in Courts, was
that the creatures were filmed exhibiting complex social behaviors that
you wouldn't imagine from a solitary animal. It's funny because
in two thousand nine there was another of these colonies
found called Octopolus, very different than actlantis, and and scientists
assumed it is this total anomaly. So it's pretty cool.
I feel like they're going to run out of octopon names.
(29:04):
But what actually happens there, Well, the octopus interact and
they chase each other around, and at any time there
are two to fifteen octopus and it has to be
a pretty special situation, like you know, there has to
be a good stock of food coming through pretty regularly,
and not that many habitable places in the surrounding seabed.
That makes them want to be there, and you know,
(29:25):
but while the gloomy octopus are solitary, it seems like
communities like this could only exist if octopus had lived
and interacted with one another for generations. Well, I do
feel like Octopus Village should be like a Nickelodeon show
where totally one flucky octopus and a bunch of sarcastic
gloomy ones. But even though for most of the show
we've been talking about living octopus, I found a couple
(29:46):
of things that we're fascinating about dead ones and what's that. Well,
no one pulled the research for me on how Greeks
cook octopus, and it was kind of fascinating. So the
diver slice the nerve between the eyes that instantly kills
the beasts, and it's generally not a long protracted battle.
But unlike fish, which you'd grilled right away, the octopus
is mostly water, so you really have to dry it out.
(30:08):
Like they'll beat the carcass up to a hundred times
on a rock to ring out the water, and then
they put the octopus on a clothesline all day and
once it's dried then you can grill it or else
you just get something that's super mushy. But this Greek
grill master told NPR quote, in the old days, when
there weren't freezers, people here used to sun the octopus
for days until it was tiny and fit into a
(30:28):
little caraft, but expanded to its original size when cooked.
Isn't that crazy? It's so weird. Yeah, but it also
feels maybe a little bit morbid. So why don't we
skip to this Red Wings fact that you were you
were talking about before. Well, I'm not sure it's any
less morbid, but we both know about the Red Wings
and this legend of the octopus and how people started
lobbying dead creatures on the rink after games because the
(30:51):
Red Wings at one time needed eight games to sweep
the series, and it kind of became a thing. But
apparently there's an art to it, really, alright, So so
what's the art to throwing the to pus? Well, the
New York Times did this great piece on it, and
the trick to tossing a large octopus onto the rink
is to boil it with wine and lemon juice or
else it's gonna stink. Also, it has to be boiled
(31:11):
like a well boiled octopus can travel a hundred feet
and as they put it, bounce and rolls satisfactorily or
across the ice when it lands. It's amazing what they
go through just to make this happens. All right, So
what happens if it's a rare, like a medium rare
octopus instead of well boiled. Yeah, those just splatz, which
seems equally amusing. But the article goes into these mistakes
(31:32):
that rookies tend to make. So you have to grab
the octopus arms in the middle, and you've got to
keep the head back and toss it from the knees
and what they describe as this over exaggerated grenade toss.
According to the piece, if you try to throw it
like a baseball or by the tips of the tentacles,
octopus parts are going to end up on your neighbor.
But the absolutely best part of the article was how
(31:52):
people sneak the octopus in Because while it's this beloved tradition,
management doesn't love dealing with the octopus. So people have
all these smuggling tricks, like one guy he'll wrap it
in a zip lock and wear them like a pot belly,
and others try to sneak them under really tall hats,
which just feels kind of crazy because, according to the Times,
the biggest octopus to land on the rink was thirty pounds. Wow,
(32:15):
it's an impressive pop. And you know, while it isn't
good for the octopus, I guess it is good for
octopus sales. I read somewhere that they actually double in
Detroit during the hockey playoffs. Yeah, that's right. I didn't
sneak a full grown octopus in here, but I did
sneak in a few extra facts. You ready for the
fact off? You know? I am all right? Well, squid
(32:43):
are easy to digest from many ocean creatures. The one
part that isn't is their beak. Apparently, beaks often collect
inside other sea creatures. Have you heard of Kimberrella? I
can't say that. I've heard of tiny mollis that lived
over five million years ago and is the earliest known
ancestor of the squid. Also, doesn't it sound like she
(33:04):
left seven slippers behind at Prince Charming's palace? She sounds beautiful, Kimbarella?
All right? So did you know that human trash can
occasionally be good for octopus that have no shelter? On
a dive off of the Puget Sound, one scientist observed
eight beer bottles, all with tiny red octopus in them.
I mean these beer bottles had occupancy, right, that's a
(33:25):
good right. Have you heard of the octopo tooth, this deletron?
I have not. It's a squid that doesn't have sex organs.
So the males have to put these sperm packets on
the side of their potential mates for later fertilization. But
because their eyesight isn't great in the cloudy waters, they
just tag these onto any squid they can hope with
a few of them might be females. So alright, well,
(33:46):
my favorite squid discovery might be the Grimaldi scaled squid.
I guess Prince Albert, the first of Monaco was an
amateur squid enthusiast, and I didn't remember this story from
mental flaws, but apparently he'd sit through what he called
the precious regurgit patians of sperm wells for specif and
because the scales of the squid were so flashy and luxurious,
he named the squid after the house he belonged to,
(34:09):
the House of Grimaldi luxury squid. I like that, Why
don't you take the Crown today, I can do that.
Thank you all right. Well, remember, if we miss some
of your favorite octopus or squid facts, be sure to
share them with us on our fact hot line that's
one eight four four pet Genius, or by reaching out
on Facebook or Twitter. And if you enjoy the show,
help us get a word out by reviewing us on iTunes.
(34:30):
You can also email us at part Time Genius at
how stuff works dot com. Thanks so much for listening.
Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production
(34:51):
of How Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible without several
brilliant people who do the important things we couldn't even
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(35:14):
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