By Rachel Fobar

Photographs and video byDavid Liittschwager

PUBLISHED ON 15 APRIL 2024

With their bulbous mantles, squirming arms, and clouds of ink, it’s no wonder that octopuses—from the kraken to Ursula in The Little Mermaid—have inspired folklore for centuries. But in reality, these cephalopods are smart, curious, and full of personality. For these images, photographer David Liittschwager spent weeks at Roger Hanlon’s laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and at Anna Di Cosmo’s laboratory at the University of Naples Federico II in Italy, where he documented octopuses changing the color and texture of their skin, choosing meals, and exploring their tanks. He learned their skin is sensitive to light, and they can taste and “smell” with their eight arms, which can have hundreds of suckers each. “Can you imagine what that might be like,” he asks, “to have skin that can see and 1,600 tongues and noses?” Researching the roughly 300 octopus species offers benefits from understanding the evolutionary origins of the human brain to imagining an alien form of intelligence.

High-res vision

Cephalopods, like humans, have camera-like eyes that focus light with a lens. The two-spot octopus gets its name from the ocelli, or iridescent blue spots, which are false eyes to startle predators that approach closely; the real eyes are above them.