Life Kit - 'Terrestrials,' a new kid's show from Radiolab, uncovers the strangeness on Earth

Episode Date: January 21, 2023

This is the story of one particularly devious octopus who lost a limb, was captured by humans — then managed to make an escape from its aquarium tank back into the ocean. This episode comes from our friends at 'Terrestrials,' a podcast presented by Radiolab for Kids.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is NPR's Life Kit. I'm Mariel Seguera. Our friends over at Radiolab have a new series out about nature. It's called Terrestrials. They find stories that reveal the strangeness right here on Earth. And the show is for kids, but it's for kids in the way a Pixar movie is for kids. Like, adults will get a little something out of it, too. It has all the elements of a Radiolab story. The lush sound design, the gripping narrative. And it's perfect for a long car trip, especially with kids. It might also help you escape the bleakness of winter. Because

thinking about the wonder of nature can be really revitalizing. So without further ado, Terrestrials, the mastermind. Three, two, one. Imagine you are a liquid creature. No bones, and you are so pliable that you can literally pour your body through a tiny opening. You can change colors. Blue and green and red and yellow and even metallic. You can taste with your skin. And you have blue blood and you have three hearts.

And if you're threatened, if you feel scared, you can shoot ink into a silhouette in the shape of you. So the predator is fooled into believing you're still there. Now look down at your arms and watch them slowly sprouting into eight. You are an octopus now. Okay, now is where I make you sing the theme song with me. Okay. Terrestrials, terrestrials, we are not the worst, we are the bestrials.

You got it. I don't know, man. Terrestrials is a show where. I don't know, man. Terrestrials is a show where we uncover the strangeness waiting right here on Earth and sometimes break out into song. There's so much to discover when you dive down deep. Terrestrials, terrestrials. So come on and plunge into the sea. Terrestrials, terrestrials. Good voice is not required. I am your host, Lulu Miller, joined as always by my song bud,

Alan. Hello, everybody. Today, we are joined by special guest, Cy Montgomery, who is going to tell us a story about a devious little octopus who outsmarted his human captors. Hi, Cy. Hi, Lulu. Um, what do you do for a living? What is your job? I'm an author and I write about animals.

And what are some of the animals you've written about? Oh, boy. Gorillas, tarantulas, garter snakes, wildebeests, pink dolphins in the Amazon, hyenas, orangutans, man-eating tigers. Of course, I'm a woman, so I knew I was safe. Badonch. All right. So let's head out on this octopus journey. Where does it all start?

It was likely in 2014, deep in the ocean off the coast of New Zealand. A little baby octopus is born. The size of a grain of rice. In a stretch of ocean called Hawks Bay. He hatched out with hundreds of other octopuses. And then he began floating away. Little grain of rice with eight little arms. Not so great at swimming. Very low chance of surviving.

Only able to eat whatever little scraps of tiny crustaceans and shrimp happened to come his way. The octopus actually grows faster than almost any other animal. They can double their size in a matter of days. So this little guy kept getting bigger and longer and heavier. And as he did, he started being able to eat bigger things like crabs and fish. How does an octopus catch a crab? There's something so confusing about something so soft, being able to catch something so soft. Being able to catch

something so sharp, I always think the crab would win. Of course you think that. So I explained that, like thousands of people who came before me, I was assuming that because an octopus was a kind of creature called a mollusk, basically a lumpy bug in the same family as slugs and clams. It just couldn't be all that brainy. We don't think of clams as very brainy because they don't have any. But all along, under their slimy skin, unnoticed by humans, octopuses have had huge brains. Brains so big they spill down into each of their

arms and allow them to catch all kinds of things. Oh, they'll eat fish. They've been known to even eat sharks. No. Yes. Wow. They will eat birds. What? Let's take a break to consider that an octopus can eat a bird. Let's take a break to consider that an octopus can eat a bird. Tweet, tweet. Splash. Girl. How does an octopus catch a bird? Well, you've got certain birds that float on the ocean.

And when they're doing that, their little feet are below the water. Oh, no. And that would be an opportunity for an octopus to reach up and grab them. And then what, can you just take me over home plate there? So they grab them and pull them into the water? They grab them and they wrap them in their arms and... Hug them. Till they...

Drown. All right. Moving on. So our little octopus is now a few weeks old and he's getting better and better at hunting. But he also has to quickly master how to hide from the things that want to eat him. Things like sharks and whales and humans and other octopuses. They will eat each other. So they're cannibals. They'll eat each other? Yeah.

And? The most dangerous predator to an octopus is a moray eel. Big, long, green fish. They have two rows of teeth, another row in their throat. So to hide in that giant, clear ocean, our little red octopus can turn a deep purple, or white, or yellow, so that it looks like a piece of coral, or a bunch of algae,

or a rock, or the seafloor. And it can also turn into spots all of a sudden, or stripes, or they can stripe just one part of their body. Some octopuses even make themselves look like poisonous sea snakes or poisonous flounders. They can grow horns. Which sometimes can be two inches tall. They can even do a display called passing cloud,

which, you know how when a cloud passes over something, it looks like, you know, a darkness sweeping across the land? They can make a darkness sweep across their bodies. And this confuses fish into believing a bigger fish is above them? Maybe. That is so clever. It's really great. So our little octopus, his days are busy as he's practicing throwing punches with his arms, changing colors,

and flexing each of his hundreds of suckers which have grown so strong they can crack open clamshells. And every now and then, he conks out to take a nap. They also appear to dream, because when they're sleeping, sometimes they change color. The same way, you know, a puppy or kitten might run in its sleep, or bark or meow in its sleep. And then one day, as he's moving through the world, transforming into eels and clouds and sand, something attacks him.

It snaps off one of his arms, and though he fights back with all seven of the other ones, whatever predator it is manages to gnaw pieces out of a bunch of the others. So this octopus was pretty beat up. But eventually he is able to wriggle away and finds a spot to lay down and rest inside a mysterious metal box. The owner of that box will appear after this short break. We're back.

Picture a lobsterman in his boat boat bobbing along on the water. One morning, he is pulling up his lobster traps, and what does he find inside but our little octopus. And while he could have sold him for like 30 bucks to a fish market, someone who wanted to eat him, instead, he thought he'd bring the octopus to the aquarium. The National Aquarium of New Zealand, they gladly take him in, plunk him in a tank. They give him the name Inky,

because, like, ink, inky. And by all accounts, he was a huge hit. He was a total sweetie. He was a super friendly octopus. Everybody knew him. He delighted everybody. So they had him in a tank and there was plenty for him to do. He had toys to play with. He was given a Mr. Potato Head doll and he would rearrange the eyes and ears. They gave him puzzles and locks to unlock.

And you were saying an octopus can even take thread and tie a knot? It can also do what's harder, and that is untie a knot. Wow. Even though they don't have hands and they don't have fingers. But perhaps the most amazing feat for this seven-armed octopus, or septopus, was that eventually he was able to grow a new one? Watch him play and watch him swim and regenerate a missing limb Come one and all, young and old It's quite a sight to behold

Month after month, Inky lived out his life inside that tank, changing colors and charming the aquarium keepers by playing with their toys, slowly growing healthier, those suckers regenerating and growing stronger and stronger until about two years into his captivity. One morning, the keepers came in, and Inky wasn't there. And they saw a slime track going from his tank eight feet across the floor, which led to a drainpipe. And this drainpipe was 164 feet long. And it dropped directly into Hawke's Bay, which is where he came from.

So it looks like Inky went home. Wow. Wow. and no human has ever seen him again it is time now for the mix this octopus inky actually made a break for it the world freaked out when they heard about inky's story inky the octopus making a break for it. The world freaked out when they heard about Inky's story. Inky the octopus making a break for it, slipping out of a New Zealand aquarium. It's the Shul tank redemption. Inky is having a party right now. But Sai says the most incredible thing about Inky's escape is that it's not incredible. There are many, many instances

of octopuses that have gotten out of their tanks. The more that Cy researched octopuses, the more she came across tales of amazing escapes. There was the octopus that escaped out of a cigar box that was nailed shut. The octopus that leapt out of an ice tray at a fish market and crawled back into the ocean. And in aquariums, there are so many accounts of octopuses that get out of their tank at night, eat the fish in the neighboring tank, and then return to their own tank. So they're really like, this isn't, this inky is not fluky. Like octopuses are sort of known for being escape artists when forced into captivity. Is that like...

Yes, yes. And octopuses will climb out of the ocean. Really? And do what? Oh, they just kind of walk around on land for a little while and then they go back in. Are you serious? They're looking for food. There's tons of videos of this.

You should see it. And do they just walk on their legs? Like, do they walk on all eight? Well, they kind of slime around. I mean, it's not particularly easy. And they don't go far, but they will spend time out of a coconut and bringing them together to hide inside as a kind of coconut fort. And as more and more videos of behavior like this have been captured around the world, octopuses making tools or unlocking locks or catching eagles. Videos sometimes filmed by

kids just looking out at the water. Scientists have come together and scratched their fancy scientist chins and largely agreed that they can't deny it anymore. Octopuses are intelligent. It turns out that their intelligence is quite like ours in a way that their bodies are not. And that is surprising and delightful that somebody who looks so unlike you and has senses so unlike yours can solve such similar problems.

That is mind-blowing. And while some people certainly noticed how amazing the octopus was long ago, people in Morea, which is part of Polynesia, were so impressed with octopuses that they built a church with eight sides just to remind them of how special octopuses were. Sai thinks that scientists largely missed their intelligence because of their intelligence. Octopuses were always darting out of our eyesight, flashing into whatever color hid them from us and escaping our tanks when we were able to catch them, which made it hard to ever fully see them.

Oh, yeah. Oh, and one other reason. I think that most people who are looking for intelligence like ours was looking for it in animals that were more like us. So we didn't look in the right place. Before Sai could move on to her next animal, her next book, she knew she had to do one last thing. She wanted to touch an octopus.

She had read an account by a famous scientist that described the feel of the octopus's slimy arms as one of the grossest things on Earth, like plunging your hand into a pit of snakes. Ugh. But she wanted to find out for herself. So one morning, she showed up to the New England Aquarium and was led to the tank which housed a giant Pacific octopus. She was bright red. Five feet long. And she was hiding in her lair. An aquarium worker named Scott popped the lid. I saw her eye swivel in its socket and lock onto mine. And then she came jetting out of there. And she reached a few of her arms up over the edge of the tank.

And I asked Scott, can I touch her? And he said, sure. And so I plunged my hands and arms into the freezing cold water to meet the octopus. And instantly my flesh was covered with dozens of these suckers. Okay. And then I began to stroke her head. And I noticed that she was beginning to turn white beneath my touch right where my fingers were. And I later learned that that's the color of a relaxed octopus.

And that she was enjoying that. And as you were stroking her and she was turning white, what were her arms like? I'm picturing them just like coiled around your wrists. And was it disgusting? I mean, were they slithering and wrestling all around? Well, they were all wrestling around, but it was like thousands of, well, not thousands, I guess under 2,000, but 1,800 little kisses.

1,800 little kisses. 1,800 octopus kisses. 1,800 octopus sucker kisses. I'm thinking about all the octopus kissing we've been missing. 1,800 little smooches 1800 octopus hugged and smooches 1800 itty bitty octopus sucker smooches Why did it take so long to learn about this cuteness?

This friendly little octopus Is smarter than we thought And now we know to pucker up When they kiss us with their suction cups It's hard to understand a thing If we don't give it a chance If we didn't search we'd never learn About this funny mollusk romance

Eighteen hundred little kisses Everybody! Eighteen hundred octopus kisses Eighteen hundred octopus sucker kisses I'm thinking about all the octopus kissing we've been missing Alan Gavinsky, everybody. Terrestrials was created by me, Lulu Miller, with WNYC Studios. It is produced by the ink-credible, ink-credible, Ana Gonzalez and Alan Gavitsky.

With, you know me. With help from Suzy Lechtenberg, Sarah Sandbach, Natalia Ramirez, Diane Kelly, Joe Plourd, and Sarita Bott. Sound design and additional editorial guidance by Mira Bertland-Tonic. Our advisors are... Our advisors are... Terrestrials is supported in part by Science Sandbox, an initiative of the Simons Foundation. Biggest thanks to Sai Montgomery. In addition to all her adulty books she has a beautiful picture book

about Inky's amazing escape called uh, Inky's amazing escape and that'll do it for the credits cause who keeps listening past the credits there's never gonna be anything what's that? Excuse me, I have a question. Me too. Me three. Me four. The Badgers

listeners with badgering questions for the expert. Are you ready? Ready. Hi, my name is Ruby, and my question is, how many species of octopus are there? Over 200. Hello, my name is Evangeline, and I was wondering, what is the biggest octopus ever found on Earth? 600 pounds.

Wow. My name is snail. It appears more dizzy. Can you say does? Does. Does an octopus eat eggs? Does an octopus eat eggs? I think it would. My name is Clara.

What is one of the biggest mistakes you have ever made? Well, just last week, I was working at the Turtle Rescue League, and I was moving an old turtle. I lifted it up, and my finger was too close to her mouth, and she bit me. Ow. Hi, my name is Elliot. Why do lots of pussycats wear their ink? Is it smelly?

And can you write with it? You can write with it, actually. I bet it is smelly to the predators that it bothers. It is chemically very complex, and some people even think that the ink actually drugs the predator into believing that they've already had enough to eat. So cool. Hi, my name is Phil. Do their arms move in unison, or can they move independently? Yes, they can move independently of each other. And in fact, if a predator bites off one of your arms, for a while, that arm can still go off and do stuff.

Whoa. It's almost as if the animal has nine brains. And sometimes it appears that the octopus has some shy arms and some bold arms. It's like got different personalities. Yeah. Imagine that. What's that like? What is the self like if you have nine brains? Fabulous questions, Badgers. Thank you. I'm going to leave it there to let you ponder that little mind bender. And I'm definitely not going to tell you about the claims that octopuses, when eaten alive, have been said to crawl out of the throats of the whales, dolphins, and occasionally humans that tried to consume them. I'm not going to tell you that because I'm nice. If you would like to badger our next expert or suggest a topic for the show,

visit our website at terrestrialspodcast.org. There are also all kinds of other goodies there like drawing prompts and fun activities to engage more deeply with these stories. Thank you for listening. Catch you in a couple spins of this lumpy, old planet of ours. Bye. If you liked that, they have a bunch more episodes just like it. Again, the show is called Terrestrials, and you can listen on the Radiolab for Kids feed wherever you get your podcasts.