Cephalopods In Glass Houses…

This Veined Octopus (Amphioctopus marginatus) is trying to form a protective shelter from two pieces of a broken glass. 

This species of octopus is also known as the ‘coconut octopus’, as it is often found using two discarded coconut shells to hide in. Like hermit crabs with shells, it will actively investigate other items for protective potential. 

Here the octopus tries in vain to make two broken glass halves fit together to form a little protective fort. Filmed in the Lembeh Strait, Sulawesi, Indonesia.

Video above © Peter Scoones / Science Source

The argonaut octopus, of the family Argonautidae, belongs to a group of pale pink-spotted octopuses. Unlike the heroes that sailed the Argoin the Greek myth, these octopuses are known for traversing the open ocean by way of a delicate, curved, creamy white vessel—an external casing, often referred to as a “shell,” that gave them their common nickname, the “paper nautilus.” 

These creatures baffled naturalists and philosophers for two millennia, even fooling Aristotle, who believed that they used their large pair of webbed dorsal arms as “a sail” to catch the briny breeze and floated across the ocean’s surface like paper boats. These myths carried weight for centuries, even among naturalists in the 19th century.

It wasn’t until the early 1830s when self-taught French naturalist, Jeanne Villepreux-Power began researching the Argonauta argo, or the greater argonaut, that we learned the true origins of their “shells.” Along the way, Villepreux-Power tried new methods for studying sea creatures that gave insights not just into the paper nautilus, but also helped us to better understand other creatures of the sea today. Meet the “mother of aquaria.”

The scene begins innocently enough. An unsuspecting pearl fisher paddles through the water, going about his business. Waves gently buffet the diver as he nears a coral reef, and crabs scuttle into their holes. Then, a single sinewy arm of an octopus snakes through the water, closing in on the diver.

The scene from the 1916 film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was shocking to audiences. “Undersea filmmaking pioneer” John Ernest Williamson reflects on the scene that he helped create: “The [sight] of that great pulpy body, those great staring eyes, those snake-like sucker-armed tentacles [sic], sent a chill of horror down my spine,” he writes in his memoir 20 Years Under the Sea. “The giant cuttle-fish glided with sinuous motion from its lair. Loathsome, uncanny, monstrous, a very demon of the deep, the octopus was a thing to inspire terror in the stoutest hearts.” (While Jules Verne’s original novel often features a giant squid when translated into English, Williamson refers to his creation for the 1916 film as an octopus.)

Moviegoers were held rapt as Captain Nemo dove into the water and battled with the impossibly large cephalopod, eventually hacking off one of its writhing arms, freeing the pearl fisher, and fleeing in a cloud of the creature’s ink. They were sucked in not only by the terror it inspired but also by its technical innovations. The battle, and great octopus, was the centerpiece of the first major motion picture to be filmed underwater. Read more about this octo-film here! 

An illustrated poem about the octopus and the blind spots of consciousness and the ceaseless wonder of this world and our responsibility to wonder.