Secrets of the Octopus

In this enjoyable study, naturalist Montgomery (Of Time and Turtles) examines the “remarkable behaviors and individual quirks” of octopuses. The invertebrates are masters of disguise, Montgomery explains, noting that they can change colors “up to 177 times an hour and assume 50 different body patterns.” Expounding on the octopus’s distinctive physiology, she writes that their “gelatinous bodies” can wriggle through the smallest of gaps (a common Sydney octopus in a Vermont lab escaped its enclosure by squeezing through “an opening the size of a cherry”), and that each of their “eight arms possesses its own brainy processing center,” allowing even detached arms to capture prey. Elsewhere, she discusses the animal’s use of tools (coconut octopuses carry around shells that they use as shields when attacked) and propensity for play (the Cleveland Metropark Zoo’s octopus enrichment manual encourages keepers to “offer their charges toys like baby teething rings [and] building blocks”). A bounty of full-color photos provides vivid, up-close snapshots of the species discussed, and material on mating rituals proves strangely fascinating; for instance, male giant Pacific octopuses use a “specialized third right arm” to place a “sperm packet” inside the female’s “mantle opening—the same opening with which octopuses inhale water to oxygenate their gills.” Fans of BBC’s Blue Planet will want to add this to their shelf. Photos. Agent: Heather Carr, Friedrich Agency. (Mar.)