My best friend was an octopus

BBC Earth Podcast

Jenkins Laura

Society & Culture, Places & Travel, Tv & Film

4.6 • 611 Ratings

🗓️ 19 December 2019

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We've reached the end of Series 3! It's been a series of new discoveries, awe-inspiring moments, tear-jerkers and revelations.

In the final episode of the series, we are telling stories about the senses. We begin by meeting Sy Montgomery, who built a bond with an eight limbed friend through touch. Octopi have the unique ability to taste what they are touching using the suction cups on their tentacles; some are more sensitive than others and it became clear to Sy that a friendship had been born. Hear from legendary composer, Hans Zimmer, as he describes the process of composing for natural history documentaries - such as Seven Worlds, One Planet - and how these thought provoking series differs from his work on iconic, blockbuster movie soundtracks. In this episode we also tell the story of Bernie Krause who is a "soundscape ecologist", responsible for tracking and recording the sounds of our planet which are rapidly vanishing.

Thank you for listening to another series of the BBC Earth Podcast. As ever, we love hearing from you on social media, so do share with us your favourite episode so far or story that tugged your heart strings…

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is a podcast from BBC Studios.
0:04.0	A commercial subsidiary of the BBC.
0:10.0	Do we see what other creatures see? Do we hear what they hear?
0:21.6	Does the world around us that we share with so many animals feel the same to them as it does to us?
0:29.6	On this week's episode of the BBC Earth podcast, we're taking a journey into the senses,
0:35.6	exploring how we touch, taste and smell the natural world, how animals
0:39.9	do it so differently, and wondering if we can ever bridge the gulf between our mind and theirs.
0:45.9	In March of 2011, I made an appointment to go to the New England Aquarium in Boston
0:52.9	and meet an octopus face-to-face.
0:59.3	A keeper opened the lid to the tank belonging to their giant Pacific octopus whose name was Athena.
1:06.9	I saw her eyes swivel in its socket and lock onto mine.
1:10.9	Then I saw her turn red with excitement and slide from her lair over to meet me.
1:18.4	I saw her arms boiling up from the freezing cold water, reaching toward mine, so I plunged my hands and arms into the water, and soon I was covered with her soft
1:31.7	questing suckers. I was thrilled because it was so evident to me that she was just as interested
1:42.3	and curious about me as I was about her.
1:47.0	Our first story is about the delicate collection of different senses that we group together under the name, Touch.
1:54.0	Using senses in our skin, we can detect pressure, texture, hot and cold, pain and pleasure.
2:02.0	Cy Montgomery is an author who writes about the natural world.
2:05.3	She wrote a book, The Soul of an Octopus, about her time getting to know these most
2:09.5	mysterious of creatures.
2:11.6	She told me what it's like to touch one, and be touched back.
2:16.6	Beneath my touch, she's turning white.
	...

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