Jennifer A. Mather

If you were an octopus you could do this: first change colour, turning as dark as ink, then release a cloud of real ink mixed with mucus which holds its shape in the water just like a decoy octopus, then instantly turn pale again and glide serenely away while the predator is still fumbling with the decoy.
   Impressive, but that would just be the beginning. Besides their eight arms, three hearts, blue blood and jet-propulsion, some can inject venom a hundred times more toxic than the black widow spider's; they have no skeleton so can squidge through tiny cracks and holes; they can out-camouflage the chameleon and their piece de resistance is the "Passing Cloud", a shadow which moves across its screen of skin the way light-bulbs flashing in sequence produce a moving advertising image! Oh yes, they're also intelligent enough to dismantle an aquarium and escape, and it's even rumoured among marine biologists who've studied them for decades that, just maybe, they're self-aware too - conscious.
   This isn't the best-written book I've ever read: it has three authors and that does show a bit at times; it's also mostly pretty dry and academic in style, more textbook than nature book - which is fine by me, and if you don't mind it either you'll find this a fascinating read. It's packed with detail, of which here's just one: the fossilised ink sac from a 65-million-year-old cuttlefish, when ground up and mixed with alcohol, produced perfectly good writing ink (want to write about dinosaurs? Why not use genuine Cretaceous ink!) What also comes across is how much the authors love these amazing molluscs: they gleefully describe a night security guard, routinely annoying one octopus with a flashlight beam, being soaked with jets of water in return; they describe octopuses inventing and playing games, something only "higher" vertebrates are supposed to do; and, finally, they introduced me to a subject I'd never thought about before: invertebrate welfare. Kept in bare tanks without stimulation, octopuses show all the same distress behaviours exhibited by other intelligent animals in bad zoos: repetitive movements, self-harming, even biting off their own arms (the only reason I didn't give this book five stars is because it includes an advice section at the end for anyone thinking of keeping octopuses, and I'm not sure now whether amateurs should be keeping octopuses at home).
   Good book otherwise though. The name of one genus is Wunderpus (Wunderpus photogenicus) and they certainly are.… (lisätietoja)

An excellent overall look at the biology and behavior of the octopus and some of its closer relatives. The information is given in an informal fashion, and clearly intended for the general reader. Well-written, too, though I found myself wishing they'd included more anatomical diagrams and such, especially when it comes to brain structure and the reproductive organs. It overlooks some important points concerning the design of cephalopod digestive and excretive organs, too, but spends a lot of time on the fine points of behavior as observed in the wild and in captivity. At the end, there is also a section offering advice to those who might want to keep octopi in aquaria, either for professional or personal reasons. First rate photographs show the color patterns described in the prose, including the white paps related to courtship, and interactions between octopi. I do wish they'd found a way to include some video clips, as photographs can't really capture a display like the Ghost Spot or the use of bioluminescent ink.… (lisätietoja)