Greetings,

Few members of the general public are interested in crabs (except to eat) or slugs (except as garden pests) or worms (except a general “eewww” response), but almost everyone finds octopuses to be genuinely engaging invertebrates. The underlying cause of the fascination is unclear to me, but I feel it too — even though I love almost all marine invertebrates! The fact that they are nocturnal, decidedly alien in many ways and challenging to maintain in the laboratory means that studying them can be tricky, but below Dominic describes some of the research being done with these remarkable animals at FHL — started, as so often happens, when he was a student in a class here. He focuses on the connections between nervous system and behavior, which is strikingly different than those of us vertebrate animals. Be sure to take a look at his videos!

Best,

Dr. Megan Dethier

FHL Director
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