Tag Archives: Octopus

Adventures in the (not so) deep sea

After a tumultuous week (much of the tumult, admittedly, being my fault), we thought it would nice to treat ourselves to something a little special, a little different, and a little fun.

We went to the aquarium!

It turns out there are quite a few near where we live, but the best one – the biggest one – was almost a two-hour drive away. Still, we were committed, and we were going. Even though we didn’t leave until 1:00 PM. Oops.

Naturally, we got lost going there; our sat-nav, who our son named Miss Directions, seems to get quite the kick in sending us completely the wrong way, each and every time (not to mention a fanatic devotion to passing through Paterson – regardless of where we’re going!).

We braved traffic, detours, seedy downtown slums and frighteningly large bridges, and finally we had arrived (don’t even ask about the drive back). I will admit, I was at this point probably just as excited as our son – especially since I had refused to tell him where we were going until we got there!

Megalodon…one of those teeth is the size of my hand.

And oh – what a marvel it was! They had every fish under the sun, and then some – there were paddling pools, fish you could touch, ancient fossils…but their true exhibit, the thing that made this place one of awe: sharks!

From the outset, it was clear that this place was about one thing, and one thing only. Oh, they had much more – don’t worry – but the sharks were simply stunning. A wall of glass, twenty feet high, was all that stood between you and them. Hammerheads, stingrays, manta rays…these fierce and serene creatures of the deep prowled, and I had the unmistakable impression that they knew, too, the frailty of the divide between human and beast…

Oh, he knew we were there…

One of the truly magical events was the chance to see – and feel – stingrays. It was a tempting and dangerous thing, and these creatures were so beautiful. Their skin, their tight scales, slide like silk under your fingers, but beneath the soft exterior is a core of strength, hard bone and muscle. Even the smallest of these beasts is a predator, and you can feel it.

Who knew seals could do this?

Outside, for there was an outside, were penguins. Imagine that! It turns out that out of the seventeen known species of penguin, only two actually live in arctic climates! This, naturally, leads to the question: what’s wrong with them? But another special treat awaited us out there, and it was a precious reminder of our departed feline family member, for he was all but cat in nature: a seal! Look at his hands and feet – those fingers are still there, and he even has little claws. This is no passive creature – he is a seal of prey!

And oh, there were so many other marvels of the sea to be seen. So many creatures, so many colors…a precious zebra fish in his black and white tuxedo; a stonefish lurking sneakily among the rocks; anemones, resplendent in crimson and magenta, so peaceful and deceptive, seeking prey in their own, silent way. And most beautiful of all…the jellyfish. What an astonishing marvel these are – so ephemeral and frail, yet stunning, and deadly; a reminder of the true alien forms of the deep sea.

…and in all the hues of the dark world.

Gorgeous in the dark and the deep…

When taking the time to observe the strange and wonderful animals that we share the planet with, it becomes impossible not to compare ourselves to these distant relatives, and marvel at the similarity and the separation. It is tempting to humanize their graces – when we see their eyes, we see their soul; when they frolic, we see their spirit – but it is not the case. These creatures, they are of an intelligence far, far removed from our own. They are as alien as imaginations from another world. Yet…they are an intelligence I would seek to know more of. For many, many minutes, I sat in silence, and watched this fellow; I cannot help wondering – what did he think of me?

He sees me…what does he think?

And so it was a most wondrous, beautiful and awe-inspiring day. It is not often we are granted the chance to come face-to-face with some of our planet’s most extraordinary creatures, and they should be cherished – folly, it is, to think that our lives are in any way more significant than theirs. It is not they who encroach on our habitat; it is not us who have endured over the eons. Thirty million years ago, the sharks were already here; thirty million years hence, I imagine they will still be. Where will we be, I wonder?

Of course, no trip would be complete without the grand finale, and this was no exception. After hours of marveling at the beauty and terror of the deep, including watching giant sharks swim over your very head, we came face-to-face with the most terrifying, vicious, irresistible man-eating monster of them all:

Gillian – blue-eyed terror of the seven seas.

Thought of the Week: [Insert Number]-Legged Creatures

These have four legs. I think they’re called ungulates.

I was reading the “about” of a blog, recently, and they mentioned being an advocate for all the four-legged creatures of the world. I whole-heartedly agree, but it caused me to wonder: what about all the others? What about those with six legs, with eight, with a hundred, or with none?

I remember being fascinated by life, in general, from a young age (funny how I failed biology). I had these great children’s science books, and my two favorites were those on snakes and spiders. Don’t get me wrong – these creatures terrify me – but they also fascinate me, inspire me, and awe me. I try my best to never, ever kill any creature found in our house; many, many spiders have found themselves peacefully transported outside in a small glass I have just for this purpose. I will swat a few insects – flies and mosquitoes – but even then I feel a little bad (okay – not for the mosquitoes).

One of thousands, all working perfectly together to strengthen the whole. We humans could learn from these creatures.

The thing that fascinates me most, however, about these many and varied creatures is the startling intelligence displayed by these creatures. There are many, many humans I can think of that behave with far less intelligence than the smallest six-legged bug. I remember reading not too long ago that the octopus, about which so little is known, keeps as much as forty percent of its brain in its tentacles (note: not nervous system, but actual brain). In other words, each specific tentacle is a living, thinking unit, separate yet part of the whole. If amputated, the tentacle will continue to live on, moving, crawling, and will even attempt to capture food.

It is these alien intelligences that bewilder me, astound me, and give me thought for the diversity of all life. We are attuned to empathizing more directly with animals that are closest to us in appearance and behavior; we attribute many human characteristics to our dogs and cats, find it adorable when a parrot learns to say a word, or even when a mouse sniffs a piece of cheese. Certainly, our perspective of these behaviors is significantly different to the perspective and thoughts of the animals themselves, but it is nothing compared to the alienness of those creatures far, far removed from us.

So visceral, so frightening – built perfectly for this job.

I think often of the remarkable intelligence of spiders. Lone, solitary creatures, they defend their realms viciously, often killing other spiders in the process. They have an astonishing patience, to lay in wait for days. They have foresight, to capture food and store it for later consumption. They are master architects, building structures naturally and instinctively that the greatest human engineers have yet to better. They have senses beyond senses, able to feel imperceptible motions in the ground and air. Their eyes…what can it possible be like, to see the world from all directions, through eight, or ten, or a dozen eyes?

Look closely – what beautiful colors.

The frightening beauty of these creatures is also a thing that possesses me. Humans are nothing compared to the visual diversity of these creatures. Imagine one person having black skin with vertical stripes of white pigment, while another’s skin is burgundy, spotted with patches of green skin. The colors, textures, and dynamics of their appearance is astonishing. Even the greyest of moths has a wonderful hue, when seen close.

And then there are those with no legs, the great creatures of the sea. Sharks, so long seen as mindless death machines, know each other, recognize friend from foe, and can tell from a single taste that a human is not a fish, and not worth eating. And whales…oh, what wondrous creatures. If ever there was a creature to better the ways of the human race, it would be they. Rulers of their ocean world, they journey, they feed, they play, and their lives are perfect…except for the mindless human death machines that thoughtlessly kill all those creatures around them, ignorant of their pain, of their lives, and of the destruction they will bring upon their own world.

Douglas Adams once spoke of this intelligence of the whales’ smaller cousins, the dolphins:

Man has always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much…the wheel, New York, wars and so on…while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man…for precisely the same reason.

How true this is.