Predators I Have Known by Alan Dean Foster

in a tidal pool when JoAnn called out to me. At her shout, I immediately left the fish to their sanctuary and carefully made my way over to my wife. Kneeling in shallow water that occasionally lapped over her ankles, she was poking and prodding at something just beneath the surface. I couldn’t see what it was until I drew much closer.
    When I saw what it was she was toying with, I’m sure my heart skipped a beat.
    “Stop that,” I said. I think I was too taken aback to speak loudly. “Stand up and step back.”
    She looked up at me. “Why? Isn’t it pretty?”
    “Please, hon. Just step back.”
    As a point of pride as well as amusement, JoAnn will usually argue anything with me, grinning as she does so. There must have been something in my voice, because she looked at me uncertainly and then, thankfully, stood up and took a step backward. She was wearing tough but open-toed sandals. Grateful for my ankle-high diving booties, I advanced gingerly and leaned over to get a better look at what she had been casually fingering. If I had guessed wrong as to its identity, I would be forced to own up to my ignorance. A cloud momentarily slid in front of the equatorial sun, fortuitously eliminating most of the glare coming off the gently rippling water.
    I hadn’t been wrong. As an ex–veterinary technician, my wife knows animals, their habits, and how to handle them. She knows the wild creatures of Texas and Arizona particularly well. But the only places in Texas and Arizona where you’re likely to encounter meandering cephalopods are the cool depths of public aquariums.
    Irritated by the attention and exposed by the receding tide, the octopus working its way over and through the miniature coraline canyons was smaller than my closed fist. I knew it was annoyed by all the interest it had attracted because of the bright, black-lined, almost iridescent blue rings it was presently flaring all over its tiny body.
    My abrupt concern for my wife was due to the fact that this was a blue-ringed octopus; a species with a seriously poisonous bite. How poisonous? The venom in its defensive saliva (the octopus manufactures two kinds of venom: one to use in predation and the other for defense) contains tetrodotoxin, 5-hydroxytryptamine, hyaluronidase, tyramine, histamine, tryptamine, octopamine, taurine, acetylcholine, and dopamine: a litany of poisons sufficient to frighten even a non-chemist.
    Tetrodotoxin in particular is a killer. Once this sodium blocker is injected into the body, it causes neuromuscular paralysis and sometimes full respiratory stoppage, often resulting in cardiac arrest and death. Since the victim is unable to breathe, the only chance of saving someone who has been bitten is to immediately initiate mouth-to-mouth respiration and continue it until the victim can be put on an artificial respirator. This treatment has to begin before the victim develops cyanosis and hypotension. Meanwhile, the poisoned individual can lie paralyzed but perfectly aware of everything that is taking place around them, unable to speak, breathe on their own, or indicate any symptoms of distress. It’s a virtual living death.
    Suddenly, the brightly hued little octopus doesn’t seem so adorable anymore.
    I explained all this in equally graphic but less biochemically heavy terms as we stood together, looking on from a short but safe distance away as the aggravated cephalopod continued to wriggle its way through the holes and rifts in the coral. Gradually, it calmed down, losing its warning blue rings in the process. JoAnn turned to me.
    “You’re not putting me on, are you?”
    I shook my head slowly. “You were playing with it. Touching it. It could have killed you at any time.”
    She pondered. I’ve watched my wife skin a rattlesnake with her bare hands. There’s not much she’s afraid of. “Would have been a short vacation.”
    I nodded. Sometimes it’s not only bold, but sensible, to be afraid.
    There was nothing more to say.