I Don't Know About That - Octopuses

Episode Date: March 14, 2023

Thought this episode should've been called "octopi?" So did we until Abby Pratt (@feltology) set us straight on our octopus knowledge! Jim's new special "High & Dry" is now available on Netflix! Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/IDKAT for ad free episodes, bonus episodes, and more exclusive perks! Tiers start at just $2!

bowling bowls baseballs have they watched my new special on netflix i think they should it's out now still there oh my god hasn't done anything what well it's done things yeah it's still i mean it hasn't you know cooked you a meal or nothing what's the title of the show i don't know about that yeah you see you do yeah All right. Hey, everyone. Thank you for tuning into the podcast. We're in England right now. It looks like you're between Newcastle, Pontine, and Sheffield. You got a break here.

Yeah, that means I'm in Australia. That means you're on a 24-hour flight right now. That's right. I have three days off, and I'm doing one show in Sydney, so two 24-hour flights with a show in the middle. Sounds like hell. And I've just been- You're having fun.

No, no, no. But it's good as well. It's good to be working. And I had an interview with Sydney, and they're like, what are you going to do while you're here? The show. And then get on a plane again. Go back to the UK.

It's going to look like on my passport I'm doing a drug run. Yeah. It's going to be so quick. We have a friend sitting in with us. We have a friend. Nolan Gould. Hi. That's your second name.

Hello. Nolan's on our Patreon today, and we actually recorded this out of sequence. We've already called the guests. We've just done the Patreon, so Nolan's sticking around for the intro, and then he's going to magically disappear before we're on. With the UK tour, all the shows are sold out, or all but sold out, like there might be 50, 60 tickets, except for the extra show added in Manchester

and the extra show added in London. So there's still tickets for those. There's the Manchester Apollo and the Hammersmith Apollo in London. So there you go. Come out and see me. It's a special of yours. If you've watched the special and you're worried it's going to be the same material, it's not. It's going to be all the material that didn't make it on the show.

And then you're back for a couple of weeks and then you're off to Europe. Nightly stuff. And so still some tickets on sale for some of the year. So the UK's all but sold out, and the European, it depends what city you're in. Some European cities are sold out, some aren't. We're still half full in Milan. Come on, you Italians.

Come out and watch some comedy. That's a little more like Brooklyn. That'll endear me to them. Aren't they real Italians? I thought they were real Italian people. Caprio will tell you. Yeah, so... And Iceland.

I think Iceland's selling pretty good. There's an extra show added in Poland, so come out to Warsaw. And then there's the one, Rotterdam is like an 8,000 seat venue, so it's selling very well, but there's still tickets available for that because it's a fucking massive venue for comedy.

Rotterdam. Is that the Rotterdam Ahoy? We normally go to Amsterdam, but they told me to go to Rotterdam. What's their prostitutes like? I don't know. It doesn't matter. You're not into prostitutes. I'm not, I'm not.

But I still like to look at them through the window. Yeah. I like to wander around Amsterdam and look at them in windows whilst being high. Don't take that joy away from me, Forrest. I don't think you're going to have a day off in Rotterdam. You're just going to have to do a little driving. I do it in the afternoon, Forrest. I do it before the show.

From Antwerp to Rotterdam. We'll be driving that from Belgium to the Netherlands. Yeah, that'll be a drive. Also, so I've got Amos Gill and Forrest Shaw in Europe, and I've got the wonderful Glenwall and Andrew Maxwell opening for me. And I forgot that it's the old school British way so they're going to be

doing the first half and then an interval and then I come out so looking forward to it good stuff IDCAP podcast and Instagram

follow that please and patreon.com slash IDCAP to see Nolan if you want to hear me talk about things. We talk about a party at his house. We've got a whole big story. Me and Nolan, we go way back to this party.

You can hear our beef. I said this to you as you came in. I had dinner with Steve Levitan, who created Modern Family. You know that. I've met him. You've met him. You've met him. I've met him. He was probably hanging around set.

I've heard his name. He's always at the front of the TV show, but never saw him in person. I tell you, he couldn't speak more highly of you, mate. He said he's one of the smartest young men he's ever met. And he's met me. Not young. Yeah, I'm younger than him.

True. Younger. I'm not substantially younger than him, but I'm a little younger. Please welcome our guest, Abby Pratt. G'day, Abby. Now it's time to play. Is it time to play, Jack? I'm playing it.

Oh, I can't hear it. I can't hear it. I'll just say, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, falling book, bang. It'll go in post. Yay. All right, can we have the camera on abby quickly so okay okay so abby's just got artwork behind her that's very underscript so i can't really tell anything although it does look a little bit like okay are you in medicine abby no oh okay i thought maybe

that was a doctor e type of bit of artwork i don't know um no i'm at my dining table. That is an egg. So that has nothing to do with what I speak. You're not at work. Okay. All right. Okay. No. Is it something to do with sports? Nope.

No, nothing to do with sports. Something to do with the entertainment business? Nope. Human body yet again? No. No? Good. I'm done with the human body.

You want a hand? I just had some hemorrhoids banded today. I don't need to know anything more about the human body. I want to think about dog's bodies. Is it a dog's body? Nope. Dog bodies. It is an animal, I guess.

It's an animal. Oh, an animal. It's an animal, and it isn't similar, but you might think it is similar to an animal we've already done. I can't believe any animals we've already done. You can't think of anything? I can't think of an animal we've already done. Have we done believe any animals we've already done. You can't think of anything? I can't think of an animal we've already done. Have we done an animal before? We've done plenty of animals.

We've done lots of animals. We've done specific animals and large groups of animals. Oh, we've done like dolphins and shit, right? We've never done dolphins. Well, we did elephants, but it's not... We did elephants. We did... Is it an elephant?

No, I said it's... Some people will think it is similar, but it is different. Woolly mammoth. It's a water animal. Oh, water... Is it a manatee? You did manatees. I did... We did manatees, but it's, some people will think it is similar, but it is different. Woolly mammoth. It's a water animal. Oh, water, is it a manatee? You did manatees. I did, we did manatees, but it's not manatee. We're not doing a repeat of the animal.

Is it dolphins? No, no. It's like an elephant in the water. Oh, a walrus. No, it's not like an elephant. It's not like an elephant in the water. What are you talking about? I thought that's what you guys were saying.

No. I don't understand these heads. Elephants are very strong swimmers, you know. That's true. You wouldn't think to look at them. Yeah, they're very strong swimmers, you know. That's true. Yeah, they're very strong. Oh, it must be elephants, then. We did squid.

Oh, octopus. There you go. Yes. They're allegedly different, are they? The elephants of the sea. Or the elephant crew. You think octopus and squid are the same? I think they're very close.

We'll find out on this episode. I think you would be racist to say that they're different. I think in a workplace, if you went, hey, look, we're an octopus company. We don't have these squids coming in here. People would go, that's wrong, that. They're just like us, but they have ink. Okay.

Abby Pratt is a PhD candidate at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois, where she studies the evolution and biogeography of cephalopods. She has also studied the diversity and habitat preferences of deep sea octopods. What are we doing, squid or octopus? Octopus. We've already done squid. You can find her on Instagram. How did that one go?

I don't think you did very well, but we learned a lot. People like the episode. You can find Abby on Instagram at feltologist. That's F-E-L-T, like feltologist, where she posts pictures of animals made from felt and shares fun facts. What is that? You make the animals from felt? Yeah.

Yeah. How did you start that up? That seems like a hobby. hobby yeah i craft a lot a lot of sewing and things my mother always made animals teddy bears and stuff well abby but that's all she did all day she's making bears but she'll give you facts about them too she knows about stuff you know about felt no she's, she studies octopus, for instance. Octopi. Well, first question.

Okay, we're going to ask Jim some questions. Let me get to that first. We're going to ask Jim some questions, Abby. A series of questions. He's going to answer them. At the end of them, you're going to grade them 0 through 10, 10 being the most accurate. Kelly's going to grade them on confidence.

I'm going to grade them on et cetera. We're going to add them all together. One of these better be octopussy. It's not. Missed opportunity there. there okay i'll make it that 21 through 30 octopuses garden okay like the beetles i love the beetles yeah yeah 11 through 20 octopussy that's what i wrote down here that's good yeah yeah zero through 10 olive garden why olive garden oh because the different gardens what was your alternative garden in the middle

of the gray gardens what's Gardens. What's Grey Gardens? It's a documentary that I figured you would have watched because you love documentaries. Is that the one about the octopus? No, it's about two ladies. I never watched it. Aaron was telling me. Me and my octopus friend? It's Octopussy.

That was a good one. 11 to 20. I don't know. He's a South African guy. The accent grates on me. Okay. There we go. I'm switching it.

All right. First question. What is the plural of octopus? Octopi. Okay. Any other ones it. All right. First question. What is the plural of octopus? Octopi. Okay. Any other ones? Octopussies. Okay.

What is the scientific? I always thought like octopus, like when I was a kid and Octopussy came out, I thought that was pretty good. You know what I mean? Like I was maybe eight or something like that when they came out and I was like, fucking good work, James Bond. Now they wouldn't I was like, fucking good work, James Bond. Now they wouldn't do it. He's too PC, James Bond. Yeah.

Yeah, sex with like one girl every movie. He used to have sex with like seven or eight. What's happened to you, James Bond? It used to be a nice pornography. Yeah, and he used to use his gadgets to like, he had a watch where he could undress people and stuff like that. Not today. No.

What is the scientific name of an octopus? Oh, um, the, um, staphylococci. Well, that's... How do you spell that? That's a disease. What does cephalopod mean? Cephalopod. Yeah. Cephalopod.

Ceph from the Greek for smurf. It's a blue octopus. Okay. What are their limbs called? Tentacles. There you go. What is found inside an octopus's mantle?

Well, there's an urn of a dead granddad's octopus. All the ashes? All the ashes is up there a couple of holiday photos and at christmas like eight stockings for each person oh no no we only put one up so they get four they get four okay yeah you did the math yeah yeah how do they protect themselves from predators um i saw that movie okay so they can they can um disguise themselves that octopus went down the scene. He covered himself in shells and stuff. And they dart away like this.

What movie is this? It's the one about my friend, the octopus. Oh, the octopus teacher? Yeah, the octopus. My teacher, the octopus. Yeah, I've never seen it, but I know. It's a South African bloke that just hangs out with an octopus every day. And that's how they protect themselves?

By covering them up? Well, this one covered itself in shells and then like he had one of his arms ripped off his tentacles ripped off and it grew back, man. Wow. Yeah, pretty cool. How many brains do they have? Oh, I know they've got multiple because you wouldn't ask the question otherwise. Maybe I would. I believe they

have a cow has two stomachs. No, they have one stomach with four chambers. We already did this on the other side. I would say they have two brains, similar to that of a dolphin, so they can sleep and stay awake. Okay.

A dolphin has one brain. No, but they can do that. Yeah, they can get one side on and off. One side on and off. That's good. You remember that. Approximately how many species are there? Different species.

approximately how many species are there? Different species. I remember the squid one now. That blue whales eat hundreds of squids every day. And my wife won't let me eat octopus. Because my wife is vegan. God bless her. She's very nice.

And in many ways, I love her. But she won't let me eat. You're saying that the whale eats a lot of squid, so why can't I? She says I can eat squid, but I can't eat octopus. Octopuses are intelligent. They're very, very smart. Squid are dumb. And squid are dumb. What was the question?

How many species are there? Oh. I'm going to say there'd be 400 different species of octopi. You kind of already answered this. Are octopuses and squids basically the same? You say yes. You say no, but look, I've had these fights with you before. Fights?

Yeah, yeah. Oh, no, dolphins aren't fish. Well, they aren't. Yeah, but who would they have a better chat to? Yeah, I know. Right? So I'm going back to, like, you can say that dolphins are more like us than fish, but they wouldn't want to chat with us.

They'd rather chat to a fish, right? I would say that squids and octopuses, although biologically aren't similar, I reckon if they would hang out at school, they'd be in the same clique. What color is their blood? They're blue-blooded like all good Americans americans blue blood how do they get pregnant or red blooded which one's the americans red red red is american yeah yeah damn right red blood red blood how do they get pregnant um oh god first i have to teach you this again yeah uh they they start off with a bit of foreplay, right? One octopus comes up to another octopus,

and they play footsies or tentacles, as they call it. A bit of romance, a bit of flirting. Then when it gets, like, really dark, it sounds bad because for us, it would sound like fisting, which would be very painful, but with a tentacle, they just poke a bit with their tentacles into the hole, and then they pull out their penis, and they insert their octopus penis. My Octopus Teacher Penis was the original name of that documentary. How many hearts do they have? Two hearts.

Where's the mouth located? Underneath the belly there. Okay. What do they eat? Plankton. Plankton. What do you call a newly hatched octopus? Baby pie.

What? Baby pie? Baby pie. Baby pie. Chromatophores allow an octopus to do what? Teach them how to spell chromatically. Okay. What? How do you spell chromatically?

It's like a... Just A, B, C, D? No, because it's chromatophores, and it's like a tutor when you're not passing octopi high. How quickly can an octopus change color? They can change color? Okay. Next question. No, no, no.

Let me... Let him at least guess. Five seconds. Five seconds. What are iridophores? Iridophores? Iridophores? Iridophores.

Thank you. Iridophores. Iridophores. Iridophores. They're the forceps that an octopus gynecologist uses. How long does an octopus typically live for? Oh, I know this one. Yeah.

From that documentary you know? Yeah, I did. I have to search the recesses of my brain. I feel since I've taken up weed, my memory's not as good as it was. Yeah. That's what happened. But there's no side effects, they reckon. It's all just healthy.

I'm going to go, what was the question? How long do they live? Average. 36 years. But the giant octopus lives into its 80s. How do they breathe? They're underwater, Forrest. Okay.

They don't breathe? They do that thing with the gills and all that stuff they have gills gills yeah gills a female blanket octopus that's a type of octopus is blank times heavier than a male blanket octopus um so it's bigger how much 11 times 11 times heavier yeah why do they collect things you said that already they yeah they cover them up and also you know just the same reason we do. They're known as the hoarders of the sea. Okay, a couple more questions.

What is morpholaxis? Morpholaxis. Morpholaxis. Morph. Morpholaxis. M-O-R-P-H-A-L-L-A-X-I-S. That's when they grow back their arms. They're morphing new things.

Okay. In certain cases, autophagy in octopods has been observed. What is autophagy? A? Are you giving me options? A-U-T-O-P-H-A-G-Y. Oh, I thought you were going to go A. That's where they mate for life and they partner up.

Okay, last question. The giant Pacific octopus is the largest in the world. How big does it get, like length and weight? I'm going to say it's half a ton. Half a ton. And I'm going to go it's 10 feet high and it's 20 feet wide. 10 by 20. Okay.

Abby, how you doing? Half the time. How did Jim do on his knowledge of octopus? Pretty good, huh? 10's the best. A few correct. Oh, you got a few correct. Oh, really?

Okay. But I'm still going to have to go with you know, maybe an 11. Wait, wait. No, 10's the highest. One to 10. For all of it. No, no.

We're going to add the other 10 to make it to 30. Yeah, yeah. And I'm going to go with maybe like a three. Three. 11 felt really good for a second. Yeah. No, I got the scale wrong. a three. Oh, that's not as good as that. Eleven felt really good for a second.

Yeah. No, I got the scale wrong. A three. Yeah. Look, I've eaten octopus. Remember that phase, baby octopus salad? The phase? There was cupcakes and baby octopus salad.

But like remember in the 80s, you'd have pizza that had sun-dried tomatoes on it and chicken, and that was pesto. That was, like, a thing. And then we went through a chipotle phase, and then we went through a sriracha era. Remember the era of sriracha? And baby octopus salad made that? In Australia, there was a baby octopus salad, and it was always on every menu through the 90s.

And it was, like, leaves, but it had baby octopuses dumped on top of it. And now that I know they're intelligent, and it's just, I feel bad about those ones. The bigger ones who lived a life say la vie. So I'd give him a three. Would you give him a confidence? Just middle of the road confidence. I'll give him a five. Five, that's eight.

I'll give you six here. I don't come to this podcast to get abused by you. You like octopussy. I made you octopussy. Octopussy. Yeah, there you go. All right, Abby, what is the plural of octopus? Is it octopi or octopussies? Is that correct? So if we're going technically, which no one does, it's octopodes, P-O-D-E-S.

It is a Greek word. So putting, it comes from Greek. And so if you put I at the end, that's a Greek word. So putting, it comes from, um, Greek. And so if you put I at the end, that's a Latin ending and that's like mixing things. Um, but nobody says octopodes. So either octopods, P-O-D-S or octopuses. Uh, octopi is definitely not an option. Wow. Okay.

What is the scientific name of an octopus? Is it Staphylococci no that is bacteria um so it is a scientific name it's just not the one for octopus um it depends what level you're looking at so all octopuses are octopoda but there are two different kinds of octopuses we have inserata and serata um inserata are the ones that we think of as octopuses that's the one in my octopus teacher um the like typical octopus the syrian octopuses are jumbo octopuses and they have fins on their mantles that look like elephant ears um and then webs between their arms and then they have these

like syria which are kind of like little mini tentacles down the length of their arms. They're really cute. How did you get into octopuses? That seems like a very exact type of thing. You always loved octopuses or is it just felt? I grew up in San Diego. So I grew up going to the tide pools like all the time. We would go to the beach once a week.

So I always loved the ocean, knew I wanted to be a marine biologist but in college i applied for some internships i got one at the smithsonian natural history museum in dc and i got paired with an octopus scientist um and so my job was to look at some octopuses and figure out what species they were and then from then on i just love them they're great cool what does cephalopod mean is it blue octopus stuff from the greek for smurf ceph is head so an octopus or cephalopod means head foot so with us we go head body and then arms and legs um a cephalopod goes body head. I'm going to start calling them ceph jobs. That'll be my new thing. Do you know how to spell it?

C-E-P-H. I don't need to spell it. It won't be written in communication, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm famous enough that I don't text those things anymore. Okay. All right. And so we call it cephalopods.

So octopuses are cephalopods. Cephalopods, man. Head, foot. Yes. What are their limbs called? Tentacles? Is that correct? They are arms.

Octopuses have no tentacles. What did I get right? I thought octopi and tentacles were my winning answers. Yeah. Yeah. No, no. you were saying? Octopuses have arms because they have suckers from the base of their tentacle or base of their arms all the way.

See, I even mess up sometimes. The base of their arms all the way down to the tips. Squids are the ones that have tentacles. So squids have eight arms and two tentacles, and the tentacles have no suckers until you get to the tip which there's like a club shaped thing and that's where all the time or the suckers are on a tent you never seen that with a squid they have those two things hanging down with like little kind of those are the tentacles yeah okay you got it cool we're learning what's the difference between a squid and

an octopus yeah we can we can jump ahead to that like he said where did you answer he said i think there's not think there's not but there's gonna be yeah and they're biologically similar they would hang out at school same click so octopus and squids how are they different the same they are close they're pretty closely related they're two kind of separate groups but um they're in the same like main group evolutionarily um but the main difference is the number of appendages and what kind of appendages um all squids also have fins on their mantles and most octopuses don't except for those dumbo octopuses um but they also a lot of them have differences in their behavior

octopuses are pretty solitary and live in most of them live in kind of dens um built of rocks or whatever and then squids a lot of them live in the open ocean um there are some ones that live on reefs but a lot of squids live in the open ocean where they just don't see the bottom their entire life do they ever hang out with each other like do they get along if you put them he wants to know if he got a point on this. If you put them in an aquarium, or do they argue, and then it's like, you know, they get along.

You don't want to be near those ink people. I don't know if they don't get along. I'm sure they would try to eat each other if they could. So octopuses are meant to be highly intelligent, right? That's the, okay. Are squids highly intelligent? I should remember this from the podcast. I'll probably ask this exact question. Are squids highly intelligent? I think squids are not as smart as octopuses. They don't live in as like complex of an environment. So octopuses, a lot of them live

on coral reefs where there's like a lot of stuff going on. But if you're a squid and you live in as like complex of an environment so octopuses a lot of them live on coral reefs where there's like a lot of stuff going on um but if you're a squid and you live in the middle of the ocean there's not really any like problems to solve necessarily don't squids have a hole in their brain so they don't have to be as smart as the octopus so if a squid if an octopus meets a squid they'd just be like this oh bloody hell a squid up. And then the squid would be like this. Hello, octopus. And it'd be like, oh, God, I'm just sitting here in my garden. And the bloody dickheads come over. Oh, I just spilled ink on the wall.

Yeah, the squids have a hole in their brain. You remember that from the podcast? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, sit, octopus. Oh, shit. Because they're the same um you mentioned mantle there when you're just discussing the difference what is found inside an octopus what is a mantle yeah

what is a mantle and what do you find inside of it we know it's not a nerd the mantle is what looks like the head of the octopus it's that like big bulbous part on the back. Why don't you just call it a head then? This is a problem with you scientists. Common man, which I am. I call it a head. Call me old fashioned. Yeah, we like to make things complicated.

I don't go into the doctors and just go, I've got a mantle injury and I need your help. There's a problem. I've got a mantle ache. i need your help there's a problem i've got a mantle ache i needed some panadol anyway so you're saying the octopus is pretty small it's like just where the eyes are that there is a head jim section there is a head um and that section just where the eyes are that's where the brain is that's where like the optic lobes are which are pretty big on an octopus um Cause they have such good eyesight, but that mantle is essentially kind of like their torso.

That's where all their guts are. That's where the gills are. Their heart. Yeah. Plural, which we'll talk about. And then. You can discuss all that.

We can jump ahead. Like hearts, brains. How many, how many, how many hearts do they have? And what happens if one of them cuts out? So you get that's like their body, though, because they have to put all their organs up there.

They can't have it hanging down. They're all head. They're all head. Yeah, mantle. They're head with legs, heads and legs. So brains and hearts, we can talk about that. Yeah, so octopuses have three hearts. They have two for each set of gills.

And then they have one main organ heart that pumps the blood throughout the body to the rest of the organs. Three hearts. Does that mean they fall in love easy? They don't really like each other, except for when they have to mate. They don't hang out. So they're like humans.

Yeah. Well, they have one heart though. And even when they try to mate sometimes they eat each other so if if one heart stops working does the other heart take over like is it like kidneys with us so i think if one of the gill hearts stops it's possible but that main body heart is the only heart that is pumping blood to the rest of the organs so if that dies then the octopus isn't going to live but um when an octopus swims so when they use that jet propulsion where they shoot the water out of their little funnel thing um their main heart stops um and so they're not

getting oxygen to the rest of their body so most times when you see an octopus they're kind of crawling around the bottom. And that's because doing the actual swimming motion where they're like jetting a little from you is really costly because one of their hearts stops. So they're not getting oxygen that they need. How did you figure that out? That sounds hard to track down. Yeah, I'm not sure.

That's a great question because I would not have. Because I always hear this about like no one can figure out how a cat purrs. That's meant to be one of the big mysteries of the world. How the sound is made. Is there a flap of skin? What's going on? We found out that octopuses have one heart that stops when they're jetting or something. Their blood heart.

The one that pumps the blood. Yeah, and then the other two. And that's how they breathe with the other two hearts over the gills. Yeah, so the other two hearts are also pumping blood. They're just pumping blood through the gills to pick the oxygen up out of the water. That makes sense, yeah. Yeah. I think I'd like gills.

Yeah, so would I. Water world. Kevin Costner. That's what Forrest reckoned. We need more holes. We shouldn't have a feeding hole and a breathing hole. The same hole. Yeah, same hole I. Water world. Kevin Costner. That's what Forrest reckoned. We need more holes. We shouldn't have a feeding hole and a breathing hole. The same hole. Same hole.

Terrible. If we have a separate hole for breathing. Yeah. Every day, I'll see somebody take a sip of water and go like that. Or a popcorn kernel goes down in their lung. And I'm like, what a dumb design. My own saliva goes down there. I'll be laying still.

Your body betrays you every single day. I'll be laying still. And then I'll start choking single day. I'll be laying still and then I'll start choking. And there's no graceful way to do it. And people just sort of look at you like you're a moron. Yeah, so I think a blowhole would be good. But, you know, if you wear a hat, then you're in trouble. So, yeah, maybe some gills on the side with some hearts. Okay, here's the question, right?

Where would you put the cocaine if you had the feeding hole? You still have a nose. Yeah, but that's... Oh, so we still have... still have this is a breathing hole you just get two tubes one goes to your nose i mean that's the problem is the tube goes you don't want the cocaine going into your lungs yeah i don't know you breathe it up and then you want anything i'm just saying yeah you reckon you just pour it up the blowhole yeah right there go straight to the brain it's a good thing i quit that drug so i won't ever have to do that. I won't have to figure out the protocol when they bring in the blowhole. How many brains do they have?

So a lot of places say that there's nine brains. There's technically one actual brain, like a brain structure. And that's the ring around the esophagus so it has a hole through it and the esophagus runs through the brain um but each of the arms can do their own thing they don't have to talk to the brain like our body does um and so they can kind of like think for themselves do their own thing they don't have to like think about it so each arm has a brain so have to like think about it. So each arm has a brain? So you've got the head brain and then each arm has a brain?

So it's not. Yeah. So they don't actually have like a brain, but they can do their own thing. Do they have their own emotions? Like a nerve bundle or something? No, I know that sounds silly, but like you've got one arm that's like, I'm depressed. Let's do things. Let's's like, I'm depressed. There's two things, there's two things.

I'm depressed. I think what she's saying is they're not fully developed brains, but they can function on their own. Yeah, they can multitask. So one can be picking things up, one can be doing something else. It's like Dr. Oct in Spider-Man. Is one more intelligent or coordinated than the other then if they can do their

own things like i know i've always wanted to write a cop a buddy cop uh show i've told you my theory and it's called uh it's called uh left arm right arm and right arm's a maverick cop who can do things and throw things and left arm's just a moron. Can't pick anything's up just, oh, stabilize things. So is it like that? I think they all function pretty much the same. Another cool thing that these arms can do is they can taste. Octopuses taste through their suckers. So that's why they explore a lot with their arms because they're kind of sensing their surroundings. And is it plankton they eat? What do they eat?

They mostly eat crab. They kind of eat everything. They eat crabs, shrimps, fish, other octopuses. I've seen a picture of them eating a shark. Yeah, they eat octopus. I feel that's guilty now. Yeah. And why am I standing up for them?

Yeah, no, they're eating each other. Yeah, why have I got to be the great barrier that stops this whole thing? Well, there's a lot of us. There's 8 billion people. So it's a lot of us. Are they endangered octopus? I'm sure some breeds are. Are they endangered?

So I don't think we know enough to say that any one specific species is endangered. But in general, they're doing pretty good. that any one specific species is endangered, but in general, they're doing pretty good. There have been studies to show that they might even benefit from climate change, unlike some other species. So they seem to do. You have ruined the planet.

You have done really badly, except for the octopus. Well, maybe they're behind it. You can tell your wife now that you can eat octopus. Maybe the octopus is behind climate change. You can also eat them. They don't have a very long lifespan. She says that I don't do it very well.

Yeah, I think this makes a difference, too, what she's going to say right now. They don't have a very long lifespan. They don't have a very long lifespan, so they reproduce quickly. So there's always more octopuses being made. So you don't really have to worry about depleting the population if you eat a few octopuses. So what is their lifespan?

I think Jim said 36 years. The giant octopus get in their 80s. Correct. Yeah, a lot less than that. Anywhere from six months to five years. But most octopuses live maybe a year, a year and a half.

I always think that with animals that don't live very long, it's like when you meet an octopus that's two, it's just like I've seen some. Let me tell you about COVID. This is why they tell you that your wife's telling you not to eat them is because their lifespans are short,

so you need to leave them out there so they can reproduce. Why can't we just wait till they die? It's always, you've got to kill them to eat them because otherwise they'll rot. You don't want a rotting octopus. Yeah, it would be like eating a really old cow. I have an idea for a restaurant, and it's a seafood restaurant, but it's an octopus tank.

Like, you know when you pick your lobster out of the tank? You eat an octopus. That'd be fun, wouldn't it? Dart around. You'd have to go. You get one of those claws. There are places in, I don't know where, but sometimes they serve like a live octopus.

Oh, that's Korea. Korea does the live octopus oh that's korea korea korea does the live octopus thing yeah and uh it's still wiggling on the plate and they think that's awesome i don't like that no i don't like that either if you if you had an octopus tank like a lobster tank would you have to worry about them escaping i'd worry about them eating each other that's true you're like they are notoriously hard yeah one you would have to worry about them eating each other when you keep octopuses you don't want to keep them together um two they are notoriously good escape artists that's why the only hard part in their entire body is their mouth um so like a really big octopus could probably fit in a hole the size of a quarter

because the only thing they have like that's what's stopping them from fitting in that hole is their mouth yeah well there's something new so like any small little hole in the tank um they're gonna escape they're also super smart so they can probably figure their way out um that'd be a chaotic restaurant that's why you can never have a bachelor season with octopuses yeah that's that's why that's what've been trying to figure it out, but that was the answer. It's like you have them all in the mansion, and there's that one male octopus, and all the female octopuses are up in the mansion, and he goes, oh, I'm going to go over there.

Oh, you've all fucking eaten each other. And then there was big birth of the octopus, and she's sitting there going, what? And she's just full of all the other octopuses. That'll happen. I thought it was because they could squeeze in the small holes. And they could also escape. Okay, yeah. If you go to YouTube and you put octopuses, you can see them. I've seen them on the ship before. that'll happen I thought it was because they could squeeze in the small holes and they could also escape okay yeah

if you go to YouTube and you put octopus you can see them I've seen them on the ship before huge octopus yeah and it'll squeeze

through just a hole that they have for drainage for the deck that's like under a door like through there and escapes amazing

it's wild yeah how do they protect themselves from predators Jim said they can disguise themselves cover themselves in shells they can dart away quickly.

And they can lose a limb and then grow up back and lose that. Have you ever seen geckos that lose their tail? Yeah. Yeah, so they can do that type of thing. Yeah, so this was one of your questions that you were 100% correct on. There's just some other things. They do cover themselves in shells, but they also camouflage um so they're blending with their surroundings they have ink so they'll squirt ink and what that does is like

whatever's trying to eat them it's gonna think that ink is what they're trying to eat and then the octopus can get away while the fish or whatever's trying to eat them gets confused why is it always squid ink pasta and never octopus ink pasta? I've always heard of squid ink. I never hear of octopus ink. Is it marketing? That's a good question. I'm not entirely sure where they get the ink

from the squid. If it's captive squid, I think squid are... Yeah, like do they kill it and they extract the ink? I imagine that's how they do it. Or do they just like scoop it up up ink farms yeah the guy goes out there like get the ink out yeah I told you I I had a poo that was as black as black it was it was it was the night sky without the stars because I also ate some glitter that day yeah but it was it was black as black and and i said to my wife i said i was something wrong with me because it was like when i used to drink guinness i was like how does this happen she goes what have you eaten and i said i had an orange

yesterday i had that squid ink pasta i don't know what it is so i had to lay off the squid ink pasta it was always uh just scary aftermath yeah it just goes straight through you. Yeah, like... Everything. Beets. Do beets do that to you? Yeah. If you eat like beets, your pee will like turn like reddish.

If I get cousin made lobster and I get myself six lobster rolls, which I think I'll eat over a couple of days and I eat them all in one sitting, which I've done, I have a lovely pink turd afterwards. Pink? Yeah, because the lobster.

Like the lobster. I'm like, it almost looks edible again. Disgusting. Okay. And how do they, the ink, is it like, can they produce a lot of ink? Or if they do an ink cloud, do they have to like re, do you know? They can produce a lot of ink. So I think they might have to like uh produce a little bit more but i think they um

they can produce a lot of ink the clouds are pretty big and what's the purpose of the ink except for escaping does it give them virility does it give them energy is it uh gives them color what what does it do is it just used for escaping and pasta? Yeah, it's just protection and, yeah. Because they're tasty. Things want to eat octopus because they're tasty to us, but they're tasty to other animals. So the ink, so they put that up there,

and then the fish are like, I'll just eat this shit. Yeah, that's what she was saying. They squirt it, and they start chomping at the ink, thinking it's the octopus. Yeah, they get confused. It gets away and goes under a rock or something. Yeah, it's a diversion. Is it ever like embarrassing for like a squid? Do they ever like

just like they're talking to a girl and then a bit of ink comes out and they're like, sneeze. Like Finding Nemo? Is that what it was? I'm so embarrassed. They sneeze, yeah. Well, ink comes out. Funny joke. Yeah, I'm not sure they have that complex of a thing. What I'm saying is, do they involuntarily lose their ink? No, it's usually

when they are startled. Okay. Approximately how many species are there? Jim said 400. Do we know how many? There's around 300, but I'm sure there are plenty more waiting to be discovered. I was just an undergrad in college, and during my internship i discovered a new species of octopus um so they're really just kind of out there waiting did you name it after you i named it after my dad it's octopus giraldi oh so your dad's name was octopus too

that's convenient yeah um that's cool you got the name an octopus that's convenient that's cool you got the name of an octopus that's really cool what color is their blood is it red it is blue I said blue blooded Americans

and then I went back to the red I said Americans but I said blue blooded blue blood is a CBS show yeah yeah so their blood is blue yeah so we have iron in our blood and that's what binds to the oxygen Blue blood is a CBS show. Yeah, yeah. So their blood is blue.

Yeah, so we have iron in our blood, and that's what binds to the oxygen and makes it red. That's why if we cut something and put it in our mouth, it tastes like pennies. But cephalopods and other invertebrates use copper, and so when the copper binds to the oxygen, it is blue. So they have hemocyanin instead of hemoglobin, which is what we have in our cells. And it helps them deal with a wide range of temperatures.

So there are octopuses living in Antarctica. And then there are also octopuses in like the tropics right on the equator. So they're in really warm waters and they're also in really cold waters and this copper in their blood helps them carry the oxygen at all of those temperatures. Where if you want to go octopus spotting, where is it like Australia or Fiji, Canada, where do you go? You could find an octopus pretty much anywhere. But I would say go to a coral reef. Octopuses. There's a lot of fish there that the octopuses can eat.

I saw one when I was with you on the Great Barrier Reef. Great Barrier Reef. Saw one there. I've seen them in Mexico. I've seen them in Florida. I've seen them all over the place. Where is the mouth located? Underneath the belly? Underneath the belly.

So the mouth is in the center of all of the arms so if you like open up the arms of the octopus you'll see the mouth there and the mouth is a beak it kind of looks like a parrot beak and like i said that's the only hard part of the entire octopus's body and that's how i can chisel off things like so i can chew things right that's why it's hard yeah so they also have a tongue like thing called a radula um and it is kind of like a tongue covered in teeth um and all snails and things have it so they use that that beak and then also that tongue to like drill a hole in a shell to eat it or um crush the crabs that they like to eat things like that because they're eating a lot of things with

a lot of hard parts. All right, let's get to what's the biggest one. Well, no, how do they get pregnant? Oh, how do they get pregnant? That's a good one as well. Yeah, yeah, let's get that one. I'll do some jokes here. You watch.

So octopuses don't have external genitalia in the way that we think about it. Male octopuses have a modified arm, and that arm has a groove that runs down it and then there's like a specialized structure at the tip and they only have one of these arms it's called the hecticotylis um and so they'll stick that in the female's mantle so you were right about fisting they'll stick that in the female's mantle um and fertilize the eggs that way so you were right about fisting that's gonna be a chapter in my book um okay well and then some species of octopus um will rip their hectocondolus off and leave it in the female's mantle. Those are the ones that usually have

a different size female and male. They'll rip their arm off, put it in the female's mantle, and then the males go and die. This is pretty rough. Only the man has the... The Reina Bobbitt octopus. Only the man has the mantle.

No. The woman has it too. No, they both have mantles, but the mantle. No, no. The woman has it too. No, they both have mantles, but the women. No, no, the arm with the. The man. Yeah, that's the hecticopolis. The male octopus. So no 69ing, the woman can't reciprocate back. It's just him doing that.

Nope. I don't think they're enjoying sex that way. Is there any homosexual octopuses? Do they ever go for it? there any homosexual octopuses do they ever go for it they haven't found gay octopuses but there are kind of gay squid oh yes squid all day squid all day is showing up with their arms wailing around they um in the deep sea it's really hard to find a mate. And so they found male squids with spermatophores stuck to them because when a squid finds another squid, they'll just kind of like, I hope this is a mate, Erwin.

I hope this is a female. Let me stick a spermatophore on there. Oh, they can't tell just by looking. Because it's just so hard to find another squid that they'll take their chance. Yeah. It's like being in prison. What do you call a newly hatched octopus? Baby pie?

Baby pie. That is a paralarvy or a paralarva. And then paralarvy is plural. So like a caterpillar is the larva of a butterfly. Octopuses don't go through a metamorphosis like that, where they change so drastically from the larva to the adult so that's why it's just called a para larvae um it's in the plankton so it just floats around it doesn't kind of swim on its own um and it looks like a really tiny tiny little baby octopus

and here's all the stuff about changing color, camouflage, right? Chromatophores and how quickly can they change color. Can we talk about all that? And what's the best way to cook them? Okay. Talk about that first. I say lemon and herbs. People grill them. Bit of garlic.

Yeah. She's laughing. She's crying out She's crying She's crying Abby hold on a second I think you're cutting out You're frozen She just said a bit of salt

Abby Pan fry I don't know if you can hear us But we lost the connection with you. It's cutting in and out. Why don't we have a batter them in deep fry them? I think that would be nice. I'm surprised they don't.

That's what they do with squid, yeah. We lost her? Did we lose her? These calamaris, my jam. Oh. Yeah. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What's that?

What's happening? What's going on? You've become an Andy Warhol painting. There, she's back. Okay, am I back? That was crazy. Something happened. That was like an acid trip.

I don't know what happened, but it was cool. There's a big thunderstorm outside, so I think my internet. Where are you right now? I'm in Illinois. Illinois, yeah. We didn't hear anything when you asked Jim about how do you prepare them. You cut out completely. I don't even know if you eat them.

Oh, okay. I just said you got to make sure you cook it correct. I don't know exactly how to cook it, but if you overcook it, it's like chewing rubber. You don't eat it, right? Yeah. Because you study them and you're close to them. Is calamari octopus or squid?

Calamari squid. So I mostly eat squid, but I'd eat an octopus. I just don't seek it out. Yeah. If I was in Spain and they offered me an octopus, I would eat it. That's like me and penises. We're going to be in Spain. I don't seek it out, but if it's right in front of me face and everyone else is eating it,

I don't think so. I would, I would, I would say that you're being silly there. Okay. Oh, so the chromatophores, that's how they change color.

Correct. So the chromatophores, I like to think of them as like they're different. They're cells in the octopus's skin. And I like to think of them as like they're different. They're cells in the octopus's skin. And I like to think of them kind of as water balloons. So they're filled with this pigment. And then when the muscles contract, they make the chromatophores big. And then when the muscles relax, the chromatophores get smaller.

And so the bigger the chromatophores, the more color is going to be showing. And so you won't see as much of the white background of the skin, so the octopus is going to look darker in that area. And the chromatophores come in red, yellow, and brown. Oh, that's the color. So these are the three colors, red, yellow, and brown? Yeah. Can they mix colors because they're the primary colors?

Yeah, so they have different chromatophores for different colors. So each chromatophore will only have that one color in it. And then they just blend it. And how quickly can they change color? Five seconds, Jim said? Pretty much instantaneously. Yeah. That's crazy.

It's like imperceptible to me how fast. And how do they match it always? I'm like, so their eye has to see it and that connects to the chromatophores to let them know it's the exact color? So up until, I think, has to see it and that connects to the chromatophores to let them know it's the exact color? So, up until, I think there's some new research on this, but I'm not 100% sure.

Mostly they see in black and white. But they can still match the color pretty exact. And we think it's because they're seeing the different shadows. So, the light and the dark. And then they only have three colors of chromatophores so they just make those colors and hopefully match the

light and the dark yeah because if they're by sand or something like that yeah they'll get in the yeah yeah huh what happens if they see themselves in the mirror how do they change color then because they'll be seeing themselves i don't know yeah i think they just change color as in like if they were going to see another octopus right and is there one is there one sometimes there's like messaging is there one color that they become when they're trying to attract a mate um so i'm not sure in octopuses but in squids and cuttlefish they have signaling colors for mating um and like one half so this is one of my favorite things is that these squids they'll have one pattern that's like the male pattern that i want to make with you pattern and then they can do half and half

so one side of their body is the male i want to make with you pattern there's a female over here and then the other half of their body is oh i'm just a female i'm not um mating with anybody so that the other males don't come and try to take their female so they kind of trick them oh yeah wish i had that what would you do yeah i would say hey girls i'm married lay off change my color yeah well that's sort a ring is. Yeah, I always forget to wear that though. Oh, well. I try to keep my wedding ring on as much as possible, but I can't sleep with it. Does your finger swell? My hands swell in the middle of the night and then it feels uncomfortable.

Or I'll hit myself in the head while I'm sleeping. I'm a basic moron. I've scratched my face with it and stuff like that. Like I just, I'm not used to it. So I take, I leave it on the bedside table. I try to remember it as much as possible. What are erythrophores? Erythrophores are another cell that helps with camouflage, but these help reflect light.

And so, that's what, if you see an octopus looking almost iridescent in parts, that's what the iridophores are doing. And iridophores are also a medication for attention deficit. This can help them add more colors, not just the brown, the yellows, and the reds. That light can reflect blue. It can reflect greenish. And so that can help give the octopus more color options. Okay.

Jim, you wanted to get, we'll skip ahead to this. The giant Pacific octopus is the largest in the world. How big does it get? He says it's a half ton, 10 feet high by 20 foot wide. So they can get to the largest on record was almost 20 feet across and 200 pounds. But usually they get to be like two meters to four meters. So seven feet to 13 feet long or wide from like their arm span and then they usually weigh more than 50 pounds. So why are they in

movies are they always dragging down a whole ship? That's the giant squid I think. Yeah that's the Kraken and they they don't get that big I mean a giant squid gets pretty big but it still doesn't get that big. I mean, a giant squid gets pretty big, but it still doesn't get that big. So, how does it get that big in a year? They must grow at a very rapid pace, right? Because- They grow really fast. So, how small is a baby giant octopus?

Like a tennis ball? The para larvae are pretty small. So, they're like maybe a centimeter. But a giant Pacific octopus is one of the longer lived species. So they live for three to five years instead of just that one year. But still, that's not very many, very much time. So they do grow pretty fast. And then the female blanket octopus, which I'm not familiar with, is blank times heavier than a male blanket octopus.

Jim said 11 times heavier. It is 10,000 to 40,000 times heavier than the male. It's a big octopus. Yeah. So the males are just little tiny guys, and the females just – is this one of the ones where they break off the appendage? Yeah, exactly. Do they eat the men after they –

I think the man just dies. I don't think it's big enough for it to actually be considered prey. Right. But the females are six and a half feet, two meters long. And then the males are two and a half centimeters to one inch. I hope they do all the manual labor in their society. Yeah. The blanket octopus?

Yeah, the female one and all the... What is morpholaxis? Is it when they grow their arms back? Exactly. Ah, it's the other point, yeah. Yeah, so instead of forming a scab like we do or other animals do, they just form new tissue

and then the arm grows back and around like 130 days, you'll have a fully functioning arm. And then the last question back in around like 130 days, you'll have a fully functioning arm. And then the last question, in certain cases, autophagy in octopods has been observed. What is autophagy? That's when they eat their own arms. It mostly happens, we mostly observe it in aquarium or aquaria.

And they thought maybe they were stressed because octopus need a lot of like um stimulation they don't like to just be in an aquarium doing nothing um they thought maybe they were hungry so they tried overfeeding it that didn't change it um but they start eating their own arms and then they die pretty soon after and then they also found out that it's infectious. So they think it's some sort of neurological disease that's making these octopus eat their own arms because they're also having some weird behavior before the autophagy starts. So is it just being in prison then?

Is it just that? She's saying that, yeah, they thought maybe, but they don't. Yeah, but they do it in captivity. But do they, because I remember you telling me about sonar with dolphins, right? Yeah. If they're in a concrete pond, they're not happy if they got open. They'll shut it down in the sonar sometimes. Yeah, yeah.

So do they have some type of wah, wah, wah going on with them? I don't know. So they think stress can contribute to it, but it's probably like a bacteria or a virus or something that's causing it. And we just notice it in captivity and on the wild because we don't observe an octopus in the wild for very long. And also probably if they start doing weird behavior, they're just going to get eaten in the wild. So we don't really have a chance to observe this. It's like The Last of Us.

I just started watching that last night. Pretty scary. But I don't know have a chance to observe this. It's like The Last of Us. I just started watching that last night. Pretty scary. But I don't know. Maybe it's a fungal infection. That's what happened the last... You're not watching that show? I am not. That's the new one.

It's on HBO. It's good. It's the guy with Mandalorians in it. Mandalorians in it. Yep. He's in it. Mandalorian can't help anyone. All right.

This is a part of our show called Dinner Party Facts. We ask our guests to give our listeners an obscure, interesting fact that they can use to impress people about the subject. What do you got for us, Abby? So, octopuses can recognize faces. What? There was one story. You cut out at the beginning if you could just start over. Sorry.

Okay. So octopuses can recognize different faces. So one Aquaria captive octopus, every time a certain night guard would walk by, it would jet water out of its tank and spray the night guard. And it was only this one specific guy. So they did some research and certain people touched the octopus with like a bristly stick and then certain people fed the octopus. And they always had like this combative response to those people with the bristly stick even

after. Like they've learned that those people are not good versus the feeding people are friendly. So they can have like favorites among people. Oh, yeah. So they can have favorites among people. So they're super, super smart in that. I'm going to have to stop hitting octopuses with bristly sticks. That guy must have done something. The security guard must have done something to him. Yeah.

Touched him in a way he didn't like. Well, I think you can eat octopus after this now. They eat each other. Look, I still eat it. They eat their own arms. I still eat it. I just tell my wife I don't eat it. Yeah, I'm going to say it's okay. There you go.

I can't convince her. It's never happening. Thank you, Abby Pratt, for being here. Again, go to her Instagram page, at feltologist, F-E-L-T-ologist. And check out her animals that she makes there and fun facts. And yeah, thanks for being on our show. Well, thank you for

being on the show, Abby. We can't thank you enough. Thanks for having me. Very informative. We learned about octopi. Did you learn? Damn it, I didn't learn anything. Ladies and gentlemen, if you're ever at a party and someone comes up to you and goes,

an octopus can't eat its arms, go, I don't know about that, and then hit him with a bristly stick. Bristly stick. Good night, Australia.