This blog post was first published in Dutch on the beautiful blog site Hic & Nunc.
Technological advances are sometimes inspired by unlikely heroes. Recently, the octopus has been in the news because new research in the US and the UK was inspired by the mechanisms of octopus arms. Both the University of Bristol and Virginia Tech are working on developing robotic suction cups inspired by the suction cups of octopus arms. While British engineers are focusing on land use, American researchers are developing suction cups for use in water. The coordinator of the American research group is impressed by octopuses: “I am fascinated by how an octopus can grab something firmly for a moment and then let it go again immediately. It does this underwater, with objects that are rough, curved and irregular – that is quite an achievement.”
Hooray for Inky!
As humans, we are fascinated by Cephalopoda – the ‘head-feeted’ species that includes both squid with their ten tentacles and octopuses who have eight. These beings are an integral part of our popular imagination. When the octopus Inky escaped from an aquarium in New Zealand in 2016, his daring escape route made international news. Maps with escape routes were widely shared online and the laboratory stressed that Inky was certainly not lonely or poorly cared for at their facility: “Inky has just always been adventurous and curious. He saw an opportunity and slithered his way out of the aquarium. We can hardly blame him for that.” The “adventurous nature” of the “heroic” Inky is of course a human – anthropocentric – interpretation of his behavior.
My Octopus Teacher
The humanized view of octopuses reached its peak in the award-winning 2020 Netflix documentary My Octopus Teacher, about the unusual bond between a South African man and an octopus. It sparked an international debate about the relationship between humans and animals: can such a relationship be called a real ‘bond’? And should people be allowed to form such friendships if they then abandon these animals to their fate when they are attacked by predators?
However you answer these questions, the documentary had an incredible impact. For example, it led to international opposition to the first octopus farm in Spain, because it was argued that octopuses are intelligent creatures and can therefore never be farmed ethically. Since then, there has also been a fierce debate in classical and social media about whether it is morally right to eat octopus because octopuses are so intelligent. British stand-up comedian Phil Wang recently joked about this in his show Wang in There, Baby: “In the documentary (My Octopus Teacher) the octopus does some really clever stuff on camera. It builds a shield out of shells, and it corrects (the guy’s) grammar a couple of times. My sister saw this documentary and she goes: ‘Oh wow, octopuses are so clever. I can’t eat octopuses anymore…’ What does it matter how clever your food used to be?… I mean, it can’t have been that smart. Look, we already give the animals of the sea a very simple intelligence test. Does this big net full of your friends look safe?”
In a playful way, Phil Wang asks his audience to reflect on the intelligence of these animals – and on the way in which humans have gained complete control over their natural environment.
Up a Tree
No wonder we love Cephalopoda. They are amazing creatures. They are highly intelligent and curious: they can use tools, solve games and overcome complicated obstacles. Octopuses are the only invertebrates to have nine brains (one central brain and one at the base of each arm), three hearts and eight re-growable arms with a total of 2,000 suckers, all of which can taste and smell independently.
They have chromatophores, cells under the skin that can change colour, and papilli, patches of skin that they can extend or retract. These chromatophores and papilli allow them to change their colour and texture to match their surroundings. Most octopuses can also spray black ink to spread a dark mist around them, which helps them escape predators or outwit their prey. The ink contains a substance that irritates the eyes of predators and confuses their senses of smell and taste.
Cunning hero
The human fascination with the octopus is not new. In ancient times, people were also intrigued and at the same time concerned by its intelligence. Stories circulated about octopuses that crawled through sewers and even up trees to get into people’s homes (as in Pliny 9.48, 92 and in Claudius Aelianus’s De natura animalium 13.6.).
Octopuses were depicted as cunning animals. The ancient Greek word for ‘cunning’ or ‘agility’ is mêtis. It is no coincidence that this word was also used for Odysseus, the hero who devised the ruse with the Trojan horse and blinded the terrible Cyclops. The Greeks defined mêtis as a combination of intuition, life experience, patience, and strategic thinking, which allowed weaker people to win against stronger opponents, by pretending to be more vulnerable than they were, while at the same time exploiting the opponent’s weak spot.
The agility of the cuttlefish was evident in their entire way of life. The poet Oppian, who lived in present-day Turkey in the 2nd century, wrote about their cunning in an epic poem on fishing: “Cuttlefish are cunning by nature. They have in their heads a dark, thick fluid, blacker than soot. It is a mysterious elixir, which creates a watery cloud. This is their natural protection against enemies: when they fear for their lives, they immediately release dark drops of it. The cloudy fluid discolors and darkens the paths of the sea and blurs the sight. And so cuttlefish escape through these dark waters both from men and from stronger fish.” (Oppian Halieutica 3.156-65)
Cuttlefish can therefore appear to be something they are not. They can change their color and texture to match their surroundings, and create darkness through the ink they squirt. This allows them to appear invisible to both their prey and their enemies, and to see without being seen. They were also admired for their ability to wait for prey for a long time and then react suddenly, all of which are clear characteristics of mêtis.
Fisherman vs. Squid
Since the octopus was considered cunning, you had to be more cunning as a fisherman. Oppian beautifully described the love life of the octopus: “For octopuses, hard-working fishermen do not set a deadly trap or enclosing net, but merely throw a single female octopus on a line into the sea. The octopuses [the male octopuses, we assume] see her from a distance and rush towards her. They wrap themselves around her and cling with their arms, as girls cling to their brother or dear father whom they see returning safely from a foreign land to his home after many days… In the same way, the cunning octopuses wrap themselves around each other and their passion does not abate until the fishermen pull them onto the boat. And still they cling, and die in their desire.” (Oppian Halieutica 4.147-63)
Oppian characterizes the octopus as a romantic and passionate soul. In the beautiful quote, he compares the male octopus finding a female to a girl waiting at home for a male relative to return from a journey. The comparison humanizes the octopus: it is hard not to think of the homecoming of the hero Odysseus. Like Homer, Oppianus plays with gender expectations: the male octopus feels completely relieved in the arms of the female, as if a great loss has now been filled. It is ironic that the moment of his humanized ‘homecoming’ will be a human stomach.
It is bizarre that Oppianus makes a distinction between male and female octopuses. The latter must have been easier to catch – if we follow his reasoning – since they needed a female octopus to catch the male. Catching the male octopus is therefore the ultimate goal of the fisherman, with which he demonstrates his superior masculinity and intelligence. We also see the sexism of the Ancient Greeks on display in their description of animals!
69 percent
Humans have been fascinated and curious about the octopus for centuries. On the one hand, these animals seem to display behavior that is very similar to ours, while on the other hand, they look as if they come from another universe. Their incredibly agile body, with which they can adapt to the most diverse environments, forces us to be modest: apparently they have a natural intelligence that humans can only imitate after a great deal of research.
No wonder that researchers worldwide look to the Cephalopoda to find technological solutions to the challenges we face. It is also no wonder that the octopus has been proclaimed a human hero in the popular imagination. In a world where we are losing touch with nature – 69% of all wild animals have become extinct since the 1970s – the octopus is a mirror of our intelligent heroism, while at the same time raising questions about the limits of our human habitat. Due to the warming of the seas, this beautiful species is also gradually being threatened, while the octopus industry is expanding mercilessly.
Perhaps humanizing species is the way we will finally take action to stop biodiversity loss. Because could we do without the octopus – our teacher, our hero?
