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In Our Time

Cephalopods

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.69.2K Ratings

🗓️ 1 February 2018

⏱️ 47 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The octopus, the squid, the nautilus and the cuttlefish are some of the most extraordinary creatures on this planet, intelligent and yet apparently unlike other life forms. They are cephalopods and are part of the mollusc family like snails and clams, and they have some characteristics in common with those. What sets them apart is the way members of their group can change colour, camouflage themselves, recognise people, solve problems, squirt ink, power themselves with jet propulsion and survive both on land, briefly, and in the deepest, coldest oceans. And, without bones or shells, they grow so rapidly they can outstrip their rivals when habitats change, making them the great survivors and adaptors of the animal world. With Louise Allcock Lecturer in Zoology at the National University of Ireland, Galway Paul Rodhouse Emeritus Fellow of the British Antarctic Survey and Jonathan Ablett Senior Curator of Molluscs at the Natural History Museum Producer: Simon Tillotson.

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is the BBC.

0:02.0

Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time.

0:05.0

There's a reading list to go with it on our website and you can get news about our programs

0:09.0

if you follow us on Twitter at BBC In Our Time.

0:12.0

I hope you enjoyed the programs.

0:14.0

Hello, the octopus, the squid, the nautilus and the cuttlefish are some of the most extraordinary creatures on this planet,

0:20.0

intelligent and yet so unlike other life forms.

0:23.0

They are cuttle-apods and are part of the mullus family like snails and clams

0:27.0

and they have some carriage grisks in common with those.

0:30.0

What sets them apart is the way members of their group can change colour,

0:34.0

camouflage themselves, recognise people's soul problems, quitting,

0:37.0

power themselves with jet propulsion and survive both on land briefly and in the deepest coldest oceans.

0:43.0

And without bones or shells they grow so rapidly they can now strip their rivals when habitats change,

0:49.0

making them the great survivors and adaptors of the animal world.

0:52.0

With me to discuss a couple of odds are Louise Olcott,

0:55.0

an lecturer in Zoology at the National University of Ireland, Galway,

0:59.0

Paul Rodhaus, a marriageist fellow of the British Antarctic Survey,

1:03.0

and Jonathan Abbott, senior curator of mullux at the Natural History Museum.

1:07.0

Louise Olcott, I'm outlined in the page generally,

1:10.0

but can you give us more detail of the range of castle-apods and where they are found in the oceans?

1:17.0

So the main groups of several pods that people would be familiar with are octopuses, squids,

1:21.0

and cuttlefishes, but there's also nautiluses that have the shell that we find in the Indo-Pacific,

...

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