Katherine Harmon Courage, author of Octopus! The Most Mysterious Creature In the Sea, suggests that the “new impressively oblivious (or riotously self-mocking) [National Reconnaissance Office] logo that adorned a rocket carrying U.S. spy satellites is actually not a bad choice, as metaphors go.” She elaborates on the “sinister-looking octopus perched atop Earth”:
[I]f one were to pick a mascot to represent such a broad-reaching project, the octopus is an excellent choice. For one, the octopus is one of the slinkiest, crafty creatures out there (and not in the macramé sense). As an invertebrate, an octopus can squeeze an arm—or even its whole body—into some impossibly small and unlikely spaces. … Unlike our arms, which are locked into hard joints and confined by bones, the octopus’s arms are muscular hydtrostats—the same material as our tongues. This means they can stretch and deform and squeeze while maintaining an overall volume. Need to quietly sneak out of a tank through the water outflow? No problem. Want to reach an arm into a tiny crack to get some food. Already done. Asked to crawl into your internet provider’s datacenter? Theoretically a snap.
These animals are also perhaps the stealthiest creatures, able to vanish into nearly any natural setting.
This camouflaging ability, which can involve changing color, texture and luminosity in a matter of milliseconds, has frustrated researchers and predators and often proves deadly for the octopus’s desired lunch. But it would make them awfully good spies. If they lived on land, one could be sitting on your floor right now and you wouldn’t even know it. In fact, the U.S. military is already funding research to try to decode this camo—and replicate it for our purposes with nanotechnology.
Josh Lowensohn touches on a history of octopus iconography:
It’s not the first time the US has used an octopus to get the point across, though it comes as the country is under close scrutiny — especially by technology companies — for its privacy policy. The US used imagery of an octopus wrapping tentacles around the world as part of propaganda during the cold war, depicting Joseph Stalin as a giant red octopus, stretching from country to country. The imagery has also been used to vilify imperialism, especially of England in the late 1800s.
Previous Dish on the wonders of the octopus here, here, here, and here.
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