Photo by Daily Mirror \/ Mirrorpix \/ GettyThis article was featured in One Story to Read Today, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a single must-read from The Atlantic, Monday through Friday. Sign up for it here.The octopus is still, suspended upside down on the glass wall of her tank, just below water level. Her eyes are shut, her eight arms knotted snug behind her head, her pale-gray body gently pulsing. She is sleeping. Then: a twitch, a sudden creep of yellow, and her genus’s famously mutable skin plunges deep violet. The arms writhe in place, the head bobs, and the skin morphs again, this time to a spiky, mottled green serving as camouflage. After a minute, the flashes of color calm. The dream, apparently, is over.The video of this octopus, Heidi, aired in 2019 as part of an episode of PBS’s Nature documentary series, and subsequently went viral. In it, the narrator, a marine biologist, describes how Heidi’s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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