Today’s blog
Lynn Murphy Mark
An octopus’s life
There is a company out there that produces complicated wood jigsaw puzzles featuring animals. Jan recently finished a tough one of a dog that she labored over for a few days. My grandsons have also been recipients of these “going out of business” sale gems. While I was in New Jersey for Xander’s birthday, Cameron was busily putting together the outline of a colorful lion. There were no straight edges and the pieces are cut in unusual shapes. He persisted and eventually produced a portrait of his favorite animal.
The company has been going out of business for months now, and they feature many puzzles for less than $10. I haven’t figured out if the company is for real, because they keep advertising that they can’t properly continue to function. Anyway, Cameron gets such pleasure out of his animal puzzles that I offered him one final selection of an animal of his choice. I’ll bet we spent 10 minutes going over the hundreds of choices. No lions this time. He was fascinated by the choices and was having trouble settling on which one to take on next. Until, that is, we scrolled down to an octopus puzzle. “OH!”, he exclaimed, “It has to be this one!” OK with me. Paypal sent my $8.99 to China to purchase the picture of one of life’s most fascinating creatures.
That was a month ago and the slow boat from China finally arrived in New Jersey. I got a text of Cameron holding the box, and grinning a big smile minus that wiggly tooth that was bothering him when I was there. Then there came a shot of Xander and Cameron unpacking all the pieces on to their jigsaw puzzle board.
Both boys are animal lovers and have books upon books about the life and times of mammals and reptiles and amphibians. They can spout little known facts about said animals with great regularity. They still have vivid memories of the animals they saw during their trip to Africa last year. They each have been loyal to their animal – Cameron to lions and Xander to tigers. He will have to travel to India to see a tiger in the wild. There hasn’t been a lot of interest in ocean creatures, until the octopus popped up.
In 2020 a documentary film was released called, “My Octopus Teacher”. It is the story of a year in the life of an underwater biologist and photographer who developed a relationship with a female octopus. As the film develops you see the trust building between them, and the octopus often waits for Craig Foster to arrive with his camera and gear. He is diving in a kelp forest off the coast of South Africa. And he does not wear SCUBA gear, but does free diving with his cameras. He is able to hold his breath for about 6 minutes, after training to do so. He encountered the octopus during a dive and they were curious about each other. It got so he dove into the kelp forest daily and filmed her every day for a year.
At the beginning of the film, Mr. Foster is struggling with depression and a sense of angst about his purpose in life. He makes a commitment to film the beauty of this kelp forest near the coast off of Capetown. That is where he encounters the creature that fascinates him, and apparently the feeling is mutual. As the year passes, he develops an even deeper respect for her environment and the other creatures that inhabit it. In one scene, he films a shark attacking her and removing one of her arms. He was shocked and saddened until one day he noticed that her arm was growing back. The message that sent him is that if she could get past her difficulties, so could he, and the healing story between them grew.
An octopus is capable of getting past any opening they can fit their beak through so they are contortionists. They are true bluebloods due to the amount of a copper based protein in their blood, which pumps through their three hearts. They are able to smell and taste and two thirds of their neurons are in their arms. They are able to camouflage readily by changing colors and skin textures to closely match the terrain they in. The different types range in size from less than an inch to the giants that weigh up to 110 pounds. Best of all, they have nine brains, including one for each arm, so they are able to problem solve and manipulate their environment. OK, all this information came from, of all places, Popular Mechanics magazine, October2019 edition. Go figure. Blog and learn.