One of those pop-ups is the octopuses themselves. Because they’re solitary, they can fare better in captivity than animals whose rich familial and social lives can’t be reproduced there—as long as they're provided a suitably rich environment. They’re master escape artists, able to slop through thin cracks and out of all but the most securely sealed tanks—one of many traits that make them uniquely challenging and costly animals to keep.



Such traits make octopuses stars of the page and screen. A slew of research papers, popular books, magazine articles, and nature documentaries celebrates their improbable intelligence (a mollusk with a vertebrate-size brain and problem-solving ability!), their protean shape- and color-shifting, even their playfulness and idiosyncratic personalities.

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