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Listener supported. WNYC Studios. Okay. Well, I know what we're here to talk about because it's like a jubilant day, but let me feign, let me pretend you're Lulu. What are we doing here in the studio? What are we here to talk about? That was great theater. Okay. Well, yes. Yeah. I am here to come out of the closet.
as a children's entertainer. For the past year, I've been working with a small and wonderful team on a radio series for kids, and it's called Terrestrials, and it is about the strangeness waiting right here on Earth. I've already heard it. I mean, it's great. It's so great. It's like a...
He's contractually obligated to say that. A jewel of a delight. It's just, yeah, it's so fun. Was there a kind of a grain of sand around which you built this pearl of a series? I mean, so it's partly a kind of boring story. I became a mom. Now I have two little boys and I became interested in how kids' minds worked. I hadn't...
I'm the youngest of my whole extended family. I didn't really babysit growing up, so I didn't really know kids until I had them. And they always kind of intimidated me. But now that I spend a lot of time with them, like their minds are so psychedelic and they're just this space of openness and curiosity and humor.
And so I think that's part of it, the becoming a mom and being interested in kids' journey. But I think in a way I'm making this for my past self, who was a little bit of a sad kid as I hit that 8, 9, 10 area, where I just, I was haunted by the sense that there is no magic on earth. And honestly, this series is an attempt to
use science and close looking to say like, yeah, okay, maybe there's not magic dragons up there in the sky, but... But there are Komodo dragons here on Earth. But there are Komodo dragons here on Earth, exactly. Like it might not be up in the sky, but it might be right here on Earth. And not only might we see beautiful things, but we might see things that
even break some of the rules we thought applied to all life. And that's the spot that I'm passionate about. So does that mean it's just for kids and the sort of half begrudging parents that are sitting with them? Well, no. I mean, you might have the bar of getting over the fact that you have to go subscribe to the Radio Lab for Kids feed. But I think if you're just an
an adult and like if you need if there's a day where you need 20 minutes of your life to hang out with your very nerdy friends who want to take you outside and show you something and point at it and like sing a little kind of rib you and cheer you up a little yeah um we are waiting there we would love if you join us and it is it does it sort of grabs you by the ears and it's like look human uh the way you live in the world it's not the only way uh and that's like to me that's
Kids are especially receptive to that because they're just getting used to these sensory inputs, I guess. But I think that's, to me, that's an important lesson for all of us. It really is. It's a work of art. I'm really impressed. So impressed. I just can't wait for the world to hear it. That is very true.
Just go listen. Go listen if you are a kid or were ever a kid. Or if you live on planet Earth. Either of those things. Okay, I think now we just play it, right? We just let them listen to the pilot? Oh, yeah. And this genuinely was the pilot. This is the first one you made a long time ago. Yeah. So here we go. The first episode of the series Terrestrials from Lulu Miller and Radiolab. The Mastermind. Enjoy.
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. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
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 best. Terrestrials. You got it. 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. 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, wildebeest, pink dolphins in the Amazon, hyenas, orangutans, man-eating tigers. Of course, I'm a woman, so I knew I was safe. But don't. 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. And 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 happen 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 it catch? How does an octopus catch a crab? There's something so confusing about 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.
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 bird. Tweet tweet! Squash!
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.
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? Yeah. They can make a darkness sweep across their bodies. And this confuses fish into believing a bigger fish is... 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. ♪
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We're back.
Picture a lobsterman in his 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. We are seven-armed, squirmy little friends. Dance the seven-legged can-can dance.
Ken, Ken, Ken, Ken, Ken. An amazing little creature. Yes. A marvel in our midst. Watch him dance his little hearts out with a kick, kick, kick, kick, kick, kick, kick. Ha!
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 septipotopus, 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 drain pipe. And this drain pipe 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. 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, 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 Sai 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 octopus.
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 the water looking for new things to eat or escaping predators. Or...
as was recently observed grabbing two halves 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. Tsai thinks that scientists largely missed their intelligence.
Oh yeah.
And one other reason. Before Tsai 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.
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 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, 1800. Octopus kisses, 1800. Octopus sucker kisses. I'm thinking about all the octopus kissing we've been missing, 1800.
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. 1,800 little kisses. Everybody! 1,800.
Alan Gafinski, everybody. Terrestrials was created by me, Lulu Miller, with WNYC Studios. It is produced by the Inc.,
Incredible, incredible. Anna Gonzalez and Alan Gavitsky. With, you know me. With help from Suzy Lechtenberg, Sarah Sandbach, Natalia Ramirez, Diane Kelly, Joe Plord, and Sarita Bott. Sound design and additional editorial guidance by Mira Bertland-Tonick.
Our advisors are Deanne Griffith, Aliyah Elijah, Dominique Shabazz, John Green, Liza Steinberg-Demby, Tara Welty, and Alice Wong. 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 because who keeps listening past the credits? There's never going to 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. Hi, Lulu. My name is Snail. Does Snail appear in the zoo? Falsete. 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. What's Elliot? Why do octopuses court their ink? Is it smelly?
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.
Beautiful sign off, Lulu. Tell people where they can find more of this. Okay. If you want to hear more, just go subscribe to the Radio Lab for Kids feed, wherever you get podcasts, every Thursday for six weeks.
Go ride the ride and see. Yeah. Enjoy. Tell your friends and your kids and your kids' friends and your friends' kids. Radio Lab was created by Jad Abumrad and is edited by Soren Wheeler. Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser are our co-hosts. Susie Lechtenberg is our executive producer. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bressler, Richard Cusick, Akedi Foster-Keys, W. Harry Fortuna,
With help from Andrew Vinales. Our fact checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, and Natalie Middleton. This is Joel Mosbacher calling from New York City.
Leadership support for Radiolab's science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox Assignments Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. ♪
