Preserved pufferfish. Former flounders. Ex-eels.
Here is an animal with venom like a snake, a beak like a parrot, and ink like an old-fashioned pen. It can weigh as much as a man and stretch as long as a car, yet it can pour its baggy, boneless body...
As he did with the electric eels, Scott is trying to figure out a way to induce the toads to show themselves. How? You need to get within the mind of the toad, he says.
If you took the monsters' point of view, everything they did made perfect sense. The trick was learning to think like a monster.
As with a child, to commune with Athena demands a level of openness and intuition greater than that used in the usual discourse between adult humans of a common culture.
The bliss of stroking an octopus’s head is difficult to convey to most people, even to animal lovers.
Octopuses and their relatives have what Woods Hole researcher Roger Hanlon calls electric skin. For its color palette, the octopus uses three layers of three different types of cells near the skin’s s...
In all religions, as in all legal systems. people find ways to skirt the rules. We obey the letter of the law without honoring its spirit, and then reassure ourselves of our righteousness.
Being friends with an octopus-whatever that friendship meant to her-has shown me that our world, and the worlds around and within it, is aflame with shades of brilliance we cannot fathom
Assessing the mind of a creature this alien demands that we be extraordinary flexible in our own thinking. Marine biologist James Wood suggests our hubris gets in our way.
The idea of universal consciousness suffuses both Western and Eastern thought and philosophy, from the collective unconscious of psychologist Carl Jung, to unified field theory, to the investigations...
The Buddha denied the existence of persisting selves. At the end of life, the self may dissolve into eternity like salt in the ocean. To some, this might seem distressing. But to lose the lonely self...
Normally a prolonged stare from a gorilla is a threat. But Digit’s gaze bore no aggression. He seemed to say: I know. Dian would later write that she believed Digit understood she was sick.
Love is the highest and best use of a life.
Octopus slime is sort of a cross between drool and snot. But in a nice way. And it’s very useful. It helps to be slippery if you’re squeezing your body in and out of tight places. Slime keeps the octo...
I wonder: Can a brainless animal feel curiosity? Does it want to play? Or does it only want toys or food the way a plant wants the sun? Does a sea star experience consciousness? If it does, what does...
Adult gorillas will fight to the death defending their families. This is why poachers who may be seeking only one infant for the zoo trade must often kill all the adults in the family to capture the b...
Wholeness feels like gratitude. Gratitude that we are safe and happy and together.
Karma is choice.
Most animals on this planet live in the ocean. And most of them are invertebrates.