WEBVTT - Of Humans and Squids, with Martin Wallen 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:15.000 Heart Radio. Hi, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:17.960 My name is Robert Lamb, and it's just me today. 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:20.560 Joe is away from work, so I reached out to 0:00:20.800 --> 0:00:25.759 Martin Wallen, Professor emeritus at Oklahoma State University, an author 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:30.520 of numerous books, including the one book Squid, part of 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:34.080 the Reaction Animal series that will be discussing here today. 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:36.919 The book is out in both digital and physical forms, 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:39.720 and I highly recommend it as it dives into not 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:44.840 only science and natural history, but also mythology, folklore, and literature. 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:48.440 So without further ado, let's jump right into the interview 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:53.480 and discuss all of this with Martin. Hi, Martin, welcome 0:00:53.520 --> 0:00:56.200 to the show. Thank you very much. Your book, Squid, 0:00:56.280 --> 0:01:00.000 part of Reactions Animal series, came out last year, and uh, 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:02.120 as I started reading in our ease, this is exactly 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:03.840 the sort of book that we'd love to discuss on 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:06.640 the show. So if I make cobble together a couple 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:11.120 of questions here, where did your interest in cephalopods come from? 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:13.920 And how did this book come together? Right? Well, that's 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:17.880 that's a nice question to be good with. UM. I 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:25.240 had written UM two other books about animals UM, one 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:29.360 about foxes, which is also part of the Reaction Animal series. 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:33.560 UM and I've written a book about dogs UM. The 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:38.039 book but dogs I actually started before the fox book, 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:43.399 and that really arose out of UM relationships I've had 0:01:43.520 --> 0:01:48.360 with horses UM. Oddly enough, but because I've been around 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:52.240 horses for a long time, I've increasingly begun to wonder 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:57.240 how to engage with UM or how to write about 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:02.320 an animal UH with whom we half engaged in a 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:07.440 completely non verbal way UM and most effectively UH through 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:13.520 touch UM and other forms of sensory perception. UM. And 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:16.520 there's a mode of being on horses as known as 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:21.079 being quiet UM. But I could never quite work out 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:24.360 our way to deal with that, So UM and I 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:29.160 began thinking more pointedly about my relationship with dogs and 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:34.960 how we interact with dogs generally, which led me to 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:40.280 think about relationships with non domestic animals like foxes and 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:45.680 so on. UM and then UM I began to think, well, 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:51.520 what about preachers that are even more UM alien to 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:56.320 us creatures We probably don't interact with UM on a 0:02:56.400 --> 0:03:00.400 daily level UH the way we interact with UM domestic 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:03.560 animals or even the wild animals that might be passing 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:10.600 through our neighborhood UM, and I really began to question 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:17.760 what animal might I um explore just in a perhaps 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:22.520 a theoretical way uh that would enable me to at 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:27.040 tackle questions like, umbly, what is it like to be 0:03:27.120 --> 0:03:33.000 in a world with unknown, unknowable creatures not only once 0:03:33.240 --> 0:03:35.880 we have to remain quiet about, but once we can 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:41.960 barely even begin speaking about. Um. And so I started 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:49.640 exploring squids uh and found them enticingly bizarre uh and 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:56.680 enticingly weird um and really just took up a series 0:03:56.680 --> 0:04:02.160 of questions about about those strange, odd animals and how 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:09.960 um human cultures have over the millennia tried to describe them, 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:13.880 or account for them, or express their anxieties about them 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:16.640 and so on. And that's where I is up. Yeah. 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:18.960 I really love the way that you you tackle the 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:21.279 subject of of the of the animal of the squid 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:24.479 in this book, because you you know, you approach it 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:28.400 from the you know, the philosophical and the naturalist viewpoint. 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:33.040 You get into the scientific research both um current and 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:35.599 UM and and of the previous century and so forth, 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:37.640 and then then you get into this idea of of 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:42.479 of literary treatment mythological treatment, etcetera. So it's a it's 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:44.800 I love the net that you cast in this. But 0:04:44.880 --> 0:04:48.760 you begin with Aristotle in the fourth century BC philosopher's 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:54.680 attempts to understand and chronicle cephalopods. What did Aristotle get 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:57.400 right and what did he get wrong? Well, first of all, 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:03.880 I by push someone an ancient writer like Aristotle is 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:09.200 that he's really working within his cultural context. So in 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:12.200 his view and in the view of let's say, the 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:17.039 classical Greek world, he got pertually everything right. Um. What 0:05:17.080 --> 0:05:21.240 we would see that he got uh wrong in that 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:28.200 regard is when he describes the semple plods um as bluntless, 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:32.479 because of course they're not bloodless. They simply have a 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:36.280 different color of blood than um most of those terrestrial 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:43.760 animals um. And um. What he makes uh references to 0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:49.360 certain qualities, like the fact that they lay imperfect eggs um, 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:53.040 because we think, well, those are squid eggs, and they're 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:56.039 appropriate to squids, and they're like squids, uh, And that 0:05:56.120 --> 0:06:01.320 they're aquious. But by imperfectly means um that's the term 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:03.720 he uses it in reference to other animals as well. 0:06:04.400 --> 0:06:10.400 By perfect he really means that the eggs um don't 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:15.599 remain uh, don't stay keep the same appearance um that 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:19.840 they have when they're first laid by the mother squid. 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:23.360 O the way, let's say chicken eggs are UM. Lizard 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:28.320 eggs basically are laid as hard shelled eggs, and say 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:33.400 that way until they're hatched. UM. So that seems like, um, 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:38.240 something incorrect in our thinking, UM, but it's actually appropriate 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:46.360 to Aristotle's um uh conceptual view of the world. Well, 0:06:46.480 --> 0:06:51.080 we generally UM say that Aristotle got right, of course, 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:58.120 UH his physical descriptions of of really all the animals 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:03.600 and everything he he writes about UH. And that's that's 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:09.280 that's really what UM puts him at the very foundation 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:17.080 of modern um natural philosophy and ultimately modern science, because 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:21.679 he does pay a lot of attention and great care 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:28.160 to the physical appearance of squids UH. And and that 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:35.440 enables him to make certain rudimentary uh classifications among the 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:40.040 different kinds of squids. UM. It's also important to bear 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:42.840 in mind, and maybe this is on the wrong side, 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:48.040 but UM, it's more of a qualification that Aristyle, being 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:54.320 a Greek and a Greek of the fourth century BC, UM, 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:59.040 really stayed pretty close to shore Um. He most of 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:03.600 his observations of squids were done on the Isle of 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:09.320 Lesbos from the Gulf of kolani Um, rather than out 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:13.400 in the deeper waters. So that means that the squids 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:19.360 he saw were the smaller inshore varieties of squids, and 0:08:19.480 --> 0:08:24.040 possibly some of the some of the larger varieties which 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:28.640 he probably would have seen on fisherman's boats or as 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:36.520 uh dead specimens that floated ashore um, and those would 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:39.640 have been less common to him. Uh. And so it 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:44.280 doesn't offer that many accounts of us those squids, and 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:49.199 nor does he really dealt into the differences between inshore 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:54.240 and the offshore squids. So uh no, that's that's what 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:58.520 I would say, is let's say right and wrong gish 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:05.480 about um accounts. Now you mentioned the fisherman, of course, 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:08.079 and that leads to the question like, what was the 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:12.800 culinary view of of of squids and their relatives during 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:19.760 Aristotle's time? Well, that's that's intriguing view. I think almost um, 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:26.800 everyone um who doesn't vegan has had calamari on our 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:32.200 different kinds of squid. Um. Squids are nice to eat, um, 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:36.240 and they were nice to eat then, except that the 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:41.680 ancient Greeks had a much more emp different view of 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:45.640 of what we call seafood um than than we do. 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:50.160 And that in biblemence comes from uh general general revolver 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:55.560 towards the sea, which was commonly referred to as being 0:09:55.559 --> 0:10:00.800 simply perfidious because it was a dangerous place. Uh and 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:05.360 uh you could think you, being a human, could think 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:11.160 um down below the surface and never be seen again. Uh. 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:17.280 And fish, including squids um, were known to eat humans. 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:20.240 And so the idea of eating an animal that eats 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:24.760 humans uh just tends to stir the stomach, but also 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:29.520 tends to um rub against the philosophical if you have 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:34.600 madam madam psychosis, which would suggest that if um squids 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:38.600 eating humans, then we are essentially eating humans that have 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:42.800 been transformed and so squids by their digestive tract uh. 0:10:42.880 --> 0:10:48.240 And that's something that that seemed to be immoral um 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:53.760 and and um culpable, so that people who did eat squids, 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:59.439 and they're numerous references to the um ethicals. Do people 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:06.559 who did squizz worse somehow morally suspect uh and somehow Um, 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:13.160 we're either indulgent or not to be frosted um. Part 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:18.839 of that sew I think it's gets um um exacerbated 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:24.200 later on by the high morality of someone like Plato 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:28.640 who really lives sort of titanical or had a puritanical 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:33.960 view of the world. Uh, and so he would keep 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:40.240 really condemned U. Some of the UM writers who focused 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:46.640 on their their diets and um what they enjoyed eating 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:51.040 like squids. So all it was it was people people 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:57.680 ate them almost certainly, but um they were unhappy about 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:01.440 eating them, at least in the Greek world. Uh. And notably, 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:09.080 there are very few um visual despictions of squids or 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:15.440 even marine life UM, apart from the sat dolphins until 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:19.280 pretty late in the Greek world. Now, why is there 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:24.800 so much terminological confusion concerning squids, octopuses, and cuttlefish and 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:27.520 classical literature? This is something you discussed in the book 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:33.560 right right. Well again that that largely comes from Aristotle 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:40.360 UM and who Aristotles, when he was describing the cephalopods 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:45.679 UM really grouped them all under the general general heading 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:52.959 of malakoi was basically means um um soft bodied creatures 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:57.640 or as I like to think, squishy, squishy creatures UM. 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:02.480 And he didn't go into that much detail, and distinguishing, 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:08.800 as I said earlier, the inshore from the offshore UMU squids. 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:15.000 He distinguishes UH squids from cuttlefishes and octopuses, but even 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:20.200 there he refers to UH polly plods UH. And then 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:23.360 he'll refer to the cuttle fishes, sometimes using the term 0:13:23.640 --> 0:13:29.600 cps um UH and other times as polypus um and 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:34.520 other times as tooth is or other times still as 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:41.400 truth oaths UH. And as as later commentators and translators 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:46.920 UM are obviously confused about exactly which creature he was 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:49.840 referring to. UM. The confusion has us to do with 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:54.720 um occupuses, that does with the two decapods cuttle fishes 0:13:54.880 --> 0:14:01.120 and squids UM and there um Aerosold say that the 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:05.360 he does, he does allow for a certain distinction, and 0:14:05.480 --> 0:14:11.280 that is based on the quality of their flesh. So 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:16.720 cuttle fishes, which swim closer to shore, he says, UM 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:22.680 absorb more of the heart um surface hard substances of 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:26.720 the earth, so they have um a bone running through 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:30.920 their um bodies with the cuttle bone UM, and that 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:37.040 he referred to as the um cbi or the phobia 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:43.120 bone UM. And then the the squids He then just 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:47.320 referred to the tooth and the tooth tooth, And it's 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:53.280 hard really to know again what he meant by the 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:56.800 tooth is which has the ending i s and tooth oath, 0:14:57.240 --> 0:15:01.080 which has the ending o s UM. But it does 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:05.960 seem that that that's largely my deduction as based on 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:11.320 UM lexicons and UH simply the fact that gave more 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:16.280 attention to the truth is UM that that one truths 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:21.120 refers to the instore crystals refers to the up floor UM. 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:24.160 So there's really a confusion of what he The confusion 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:29.440 is partly due to his his vagueness UM and his accounts, 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:34.600 and to the later confusion of UH of commentators and translators, 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:41.400 largely again because those commentators would themselves not have ventured 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:44.240 out into the sea to look at squids or for 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:47.400 that matter, of cold fishes or occupuses. But we're probably 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:56.080 writing and unlocked the libraries UH, copying or summarizing um 0:15:56.160 --> 0:16:04.320 Aristotle's texts, so that that confusion does become pretty much 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:12.479 um um a quality of squid or even m squishy 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:18.440 um uh. Natural history for the next many years, let's say, 0:16:18.440 --> 0:16:20.880 the next thousand or so years, and as as you 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:22.720 later discussed in the book, and we still have what 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:26.440 what would encounter cases where something we're calling a squid 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:30.320 is actually not technically a squid. Right you mean the 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:34.760 um wasn't there? Uh when when you start talking about 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:41.320 the vampire squid. Oh yes, yes, yes, of course, um right, 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:45.440 technically that it is not a squid. That's it's actually 0:16:46.040 --> 0:16:49.640 more of an octopod because it doesn't um, it doesn't 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:55.320 really have the same layout of of arms and testicles 0:16:55.440 --> 0:17:00.480 that squids do. Uh so yeah, so you're right us 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:06.160 that's one of the strangest um creatures um and also 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:09.480 a creature was one of the most delightful names of 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:17.560 the vampire squid from hell um. Uh yes, but almost 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:21.760 certainly as are let's at least possibly it's not actually 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:25.920 as squid. Yeah. I love the the illustrations we see 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:29.960 of this particular cephalobod in the book. One of them 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:32.040 I was really taken with. I hadn't seen there seen 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:35.399 this particular illustration before, but the artist almost it seemed 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:37.320 like they were trying to make the squid appear like 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:42.240 a skull. Am I alone in uh interpreting it this way? Yes, 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:45.000 I think that's that's sort of appropriate. That's that's I 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:51.600 believe carl Um illustration Um, oh no, I have right here. 0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:56.280 It does look like skull um because it's it's black, 0:17:57.240 --> 0:18:01.400 and it's it's in this particular stration, it's upside down, 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:06.679 so it has the sort of duelish mouth that seems 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:10.240 to be in sort of a hideous grin underneath two eyes. 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:15.240 And then there's a no socket. Right. That's that's that's 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:25.880 sort of a fastful rendition of vampires than now, going 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:29.520 back to the two ancient writings here Plenty of the Elder. 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:32.960 Of course, his accounts inevitably come up when anytime we're 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:36.879 discussing Western understandings of the natural world. And I was 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:39.520 really taken by a bit from Plenty that you discussed 0:18:39.560 --> 0:18:42.880 in the book. Can you explain the proposed connection between 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:48.800 the quote lavish nature of liquid and large marine animal sizes? Well, 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:56.880 plenty um very much an air of Aristotle was describing 0:18:57.160 --> 0:19:01.320 the world as as he thought, uh and describing the 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:05.880 world very much as a Roman. So when he looked 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:10.919 out onto bodies of water, lakes, rivers, and the sea, um, 0:19:11.040 --> 0:19:16.800 he saw that there there there was a large form 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:21.359 that was basically being fed continually by rainfall and other 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:25.960 forms of precipitation. So that's that's the nourishment that he 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:30.840 sees taking place UM. And then he draws a basic 0:19:30.880 --> 0:19:36.480 analogy between h two different realms of the world. On 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:40.679 the one hand, there's the terrestrial realm populated by humans 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:46.000 and land animals, and then the um aqueous world uh. 0:19:46.040 --> 0:19:50.879 And she says every form of of of um uh 0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:56.400 life that exists on land must also have its counterpart 0:19:56.720 --> 0:20:01.679 in the sea uh and the cious realm. But because 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:07.840 the ocurious realm is more obviously nourished by precipitation uh 0:20:08.960 --> 0:20:13.280 and is by precipitation, which is like uh, the acicus 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:18.000 realm than land is like precipitation UH. That means then 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:22.280 that the animals are nourished themselves more um than land 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:26.440 animals are, so they grow to greater uh scientists, even 0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:32.639 monster sizes. And because water is more fluid, they also 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:39.440 are liable to take uh more varied shapes uh and 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:44.600 even diverged into a completely different animals that do not 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:52.480 exist on land. UM. So that analogy is central to 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:57.000 plenty kind of thinking about natural history UM. And it's 0:20:57.040 --> 0:21:02.119 also a clear indication that he's thinking specilatively, since of 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:05.800 course you didn't have a bathosphere uh and couldn't see 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:12.240 the below the surface of the dark sea. Um. But 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:18.479 it's also on the basis of that that um uh 0:21:18.920 --> 0:21:22.960 that later accounts of sea monsters of claimed to have 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:28.840 some basis in um natural history. In fact, I also 0:21:28.920 --> 0:21:31.280 love a bit that you from Plenty that you share, 0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:34.040 because this is one of those quotes that I guess 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:37.439 when you're when you're looking at things Plenty shared, I 0:21:37.440 --> 0:21:40.639 guess sometimes you know second or third hand about things 0:21:40.640 --> 0:21:45.040 in the world. Sometimes they may feel a bit detached 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:47.560 from the actual reality. But this is one of those 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:50.159 quotes that that I feel like actually after just speaks 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:53.399 across the ages and and matches up with like my 0:21:53.480 --> 0:21:57.639 experience of seeing octopi in the wilder or any cephalopods 0:21:57.680 --> 0:22:00.879 in an aquarium. And that is quote that squids are 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:05.399 virtually incomprehensible to those who have never seen one because 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:08.600 they continually shift their appearance by moving their arms and 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:11.840 changing colors. UM. I don't know about you, but I 0:22:11.880 --> 0:22:14.800 thought that really had a real ring of solid truth 0:22:14.840 --> 0:22:18.320 to it. Absolutely uh. And as I mentioned at the 0:22:18.400 --> 0:22:23.760 very beginning, would my interests uh and squids Uh, it's 0:22:23.920 --> 0:22:28.600 just that incomprehensibility, how can there be such an animal? 0:22:29.560 --> 0:22:33.200 The simple the basic word supple pod the official term 0:22:33.560 --> 0:22:37.560 for those whole group of animals, really means the head 0:22:37.760 --> 0:22:42.760 of feet, right suffalo and then pod for feet. That 0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:49.360 makes no sense, and that name encapsulates the oddness and strangeness, 0:22:49.400 --> 0:22:55.000 the alien quality of of these these creatures. Um. And 0:22:55.040 --> 0:23:00.800 they they really do challenge our basic sense So what 0:23:00.960 --> 0:23:05.919 an animal should be like m or act like? Because 0:23:06.080 --> 0:23:10.840 indeed they do change shape continually, they change colors continually, UM. 0:23:11.160 --> 0:23:14.760 And they in many ways they should not exist. Uh. 0:23:14.800 --> 0:23:18.840 There even questions that at various times in history about 0:23:18.880 --> 0:23:25.320 whether they should be categorized as animals or instead as plants. Uh. 0:23:25.359 --> 0:23:31.520 And so they've always been a real mystery uh and 0:23:31.840 --> 0:23:38.359 a real challenge to our ability to create um taxonomies, 0:23:38.680 --> 0:23:43.320 UM and explanations and based on categories of animals and 0:23:43.359 --> 0:23:48.040 their relations to one another, because there's always the troublic 0:23:48.160 --> 0:23:52.439 question of how do we do this head of feet 0:23:52.600 --> 0:23:58.080 in relation to ourselves? Um? And who's backwards? Are we 0:23:58.160 --> 0:24:03.000 built backwards or are they m Now you mentioned the mysterious, 0:24:03.040 --> 0:24:04.399 and of course you spent a lot of time in 0:24:04.400 --> 0:24:10.280 the book discussing mythologies and folklore concerning various cephalopods, and 0:24:10.320 --> 0:24:12.640 of course you get into the into the giant squid 0:24:12.960 --> 0:24:15.919 quite a bit as well. UM. So so getting more 0:24:15.960 --> 0:24:19.280 into the scientific realm here, can you tell us what 0:24:19.480 --> 0:24:23.520 role Japterese Steamstrup played in bridging squid myth and squid 0:24:23.600 --> 0:24:29.280 science of the nineteenth century. Yeah, that's that's a great 0:24:29.359 --> 0:24:33.920 question for UM. Lots of reasons UM stage up. It's 0:24:34.000 --> 0:24:40.080 really the turning point from the tradition of UH, let's say, 0:24:40.160 --> 0:24:46.600 squid lower based on legends and UM uncertainty UH and 0:24:47.480 --> 0:24:54.000 the terminological vagueness that we were talking about two modern 0:24:54.560 --> 0:25:00.359 classifications that UM made possible scientific studies about squid since 0:25:00.520 --> 0:25:06.199 cephalopods UM. So for a number of years, especially in 0:25:06.240 --> 0:25:12.080 the North Atlantic area, there had been UM. Of course, 0:25:12.080 --> 0:25:15.960 there were the legends of the creek and the big 0:25:16.000 --> 0:25:22.280 monsters that swallowed up UM ships or that people would 0:25:22.640 --> 0:25:27.720 mistake as islands and land on and perform religious rituals 0:25:27.760 --> 0:25:30.760 and and then be swallowed up and dragged down to 0:25:30.880 --> 0:25:37.159 the sea. UM. And those legends were intermixed with a 0:25:37.240 --> 0:25:41.960 number of beachings of giant squids UH, the Artitude of 0:25:42.359 --> 0:25:48.479 ducks UM and other sightings of squids UH. And there 0:25:48.560 --> 0:25:55.360 were recorded as historically evince uh really starting um uh 0:25:55.359 --> 0:25:59.920 and let's say the sixteenth century by Guillame Brondelas who 0:26:00.240 --> 0:26:06.320 uh described um uh strange creatures that he referred to 0:26:06.440 --> 0:26:14.280 as um monkfish are episcopal fish, and he uh illustrated 0:26:14.359 --> 0:26:19.159 his roll delayed, that is, illustrated his accounts with drawings 0:26:19.240 --> 0:26:24.439 of of um preachers that had fins instead of feet 0:26:24.480 --> 0:26:30.960 and hands. But we're wearing a monk's habit or cardinals 0:26:31.160 --> 0:26:38.000 miter um and that those sorts of accounts really verd 0:26:38.119 --> 0:26:45.920 on on um uh my and uh fabulous accounts um. 0:26:45.920 --> 0:26:48.840 But there was still an effort to provide some kind 0:26:48.880 --> 0:26:57.480 of empirical credence to the existence of the unbelievable monsters um. 0:26:57.600 --> 0:27:00.920 So as a number of sightings and beach things occurred. 0:27:01.640 --> 0:27:04.600 By the middle of the nineteenth century, uh stain stroke 0:27:04.760 --> 0:27:11.879 came along um and fortuitously no one gave him a 0:27:12.000 --> 0:27:17.159 beak from one of the um uh giant squids that 0:27:17.280 --> 0:27:23.600 had beached um and Uh. He delivered a lecture in 0:27:23.680 --> 0:27:27.200 eighteen fifty four where he went through all the different 0:27:27.200 --> 0:27:34.440 accounts of sea monsters by Rondelay Uh and others, and 0:27:34.560 --> 0:27:37.760 he people are in the kind of a literary analysis 0:27:38.280 --> 0:27:43.600 of all the descriptions um which had probably been um 0:27:43.720 --> 0:27:48.840 um gathered by Rondalay and others from from fisherman's accounts 0:27:48.840 --> 0:27:52.240 who tried to describe these bizarre creatures they had seen 0:27:53.000 --> 0:27:58.840 UM and on the Statestrup then concluded that all these 0:27:58.880 --> 0:28:05.480 accounts were referred to one very real creature. Uh. And 0:28:05.640 --> 0:28:10.320 so after a lengthy series of extra jesys of these 0:28:10.520 --> 0:28:17.119 various accounts, he quite dramatically um presented to his audience, 0:28:17.440 --> 0:28:22.200 Uh this beak he had been given a very imposing 0:28:22.800 --> 0:28:27.679 uh beak. A squid speak is like a hawk's beak 0:28:27.840 --> 0:28:32.840 or a parents beak, So it's really sharp and curved 0:28:32.920 --> 0:28:37.520 and mekets to tear flesh. Uh. So this is a 0:28:37.600 --> 0:28:43.320 good size speak Uh. And he with that sort of 0:28:43.480 --> 0:28:48.400 dramatic flourish of showing his audience to speak um, he 0:28:48.520 --> 0:28:54.360 was really to to change the accounts of seafarers and 0:28:54.360 --> 0:29:02.560 and let's say the legends of monsters into a verifiable 0:29:03.440 --> 0:29:07.320 uh animal that could be given a scientific name. And 0:29:07.840 --> 0:29:10.280 uh he's the one who then gave it the name 0:29:10.440 --> 0:29:17.200 Arctutus ducks. Uh. And with that name, uh, he basically 0:29:17.240 --> 0:29:24.160 cleared up the ambiguity that existence Aristotle and he uh 0:29:24.600 --> 0:29:30.880 allowed for a focused and discipline study of UM of 0:29:30.960 --> 0:29:36.040 squids based on UM, a real taxonomy, and a taxonomy 0:29:36.200 --> 0:29:42.680 that lays out UM different genera of squids, different species 0:29:42.720 --> 0:29:46.640 of squids, and is able to map their locations around 0:29:46.680 --> 0:29:52.720 the world. So m in in short stage really marks 0:29:52.800 --> 0:29:57.600 the transition from the world of myth and uncertainty and 0:29:57.800 --> 0:30:03.560 ambiguity to the world of modern empirical study. Now, speaking 0:30:03.560 --> 0:30:06.640 of modern study, one of the big topics that comes 0:30:06.720 --> 0:30:08.320 up in all this, and you discussed in the book 0:30:08.320 --> 0:30:12.120 of course, is the is the our attempts to understand 0:30:12.120 --> 0:30:16.200 cephalopod intelligence UM, and you bring up some of our 0:30:16.240 --> 0:30:20.480 responses to cephalopod intelligence and even the idea that they 0:30:20.480 --> 0:30:24.239 could be quote the primates of the sea. What are 0:30:24.320 --> 0:30:27.360 what are the challenges and limits in play when it 0:30:27.360 --> 0:30:30.400 comes to understanding the mind of the squid? Well, the 0:30:30.520 --> 0:30:35.560 cheligence a player or or are great. Even even though 0:30:36.320 --> 0:30:40.520 UH there is such thing as uh scientific study of 0:30:40.600 --> 0:30:44.480 squids and uh um the science of squids is growing. 0:30:45.800 --> 0:30:50.760 The taxonomy of squids is UM expanding exponentially as more 0:30:50.800 --> 0:30:56.840 and more species in general are being discovered continually UM. 0:30:56.880 --> 0:31:02.480 But on the other hand, exactly what these creatures on 0:31:02.600 --> 0:31:08.320 her still remains UM cheezing, because they're these strange creatures 0:31:08.320 --> 0:31:12.520 whose heads consists of feet UM. But they also have 0:31:12.960 --> 0:31:17.920 sizeable brains UM, and they show a real intelligence UM. 0:31:18.200 --> 0:31:22.520 The marine biologists differ. Mather, as pointed out, I think 0:31:23.040 --> 0:31:28.760 most valuable, valuably UM that squids exist in on courting 0:31:28.760 --> 0:31:32.880 her hair worlds away from us UM. And even though 0:31:33.000 --> 0:31:36.080 she says, even though their their brains may not have 0:31:36.280 --> 0:31:41.360 quite the same UM structure as ours, they can still 0:31:41.440 --> 0:31:46.520 be seen to work in analogous ways to our brains, 0:31:46.560 --> 0:31:50.560 and therefore their intelligence can be seen to be somewhat analogous, 0:31:50.680 --> 0:31:57.840 albeit bizarre. UM. It's worth noting that the squid brains 0:31:58.400 --> 0:32:05.160 UM regulate movement through visual cues UM. That makes UM 0:32:05.520 --> 0:32:11.600 their perception UM and their movement their response to that 0:32:11.760 --> 0:32:17.840 perception almost simultaneous. In fact, so simultaneous has to be 0:32:17.960 --> 0:32:24.440 virtually the same event. Whereas let's say, in humans, most 0:32:24.760 --> 0:32:30.280 land creatures, UM, we perceived something and it might take 0:32:31.160 --> 0:32:36.440 a second or two to to respond UH, squids perceive 0:32:36.880 --> 0:32:46.480 and UH respond instantaneously. UH. Scientists have focused UM, particularly 0:32:46.880 --> 0:32:50.480 on what they call it the giant act on a 0:32:50.640 --> 0:32:55.920 very large nerve fiber that radiates throughout the wall of 0:32:56.040 --> 0:33:01.560 the mantle the tubular part of the squid. UH. This 0:33:01.920 --> 0:33:07.840 this nerve about a millimeter and diameter UH, really the 0:33:07.960 --> 0:33:14.680 largest nerves of any any animal in the world. And 0:33:14.720 --> 0:33:18.320 it's the size of the nerves that is able to 0:33:18.440 --> 0:33:22.880