Dr Helen Scales, who will outline her ideas in a talk on the Earth Stage at 11.45, has written books about octopuses and seahorses, and has appeared on Radio 4’s The Infinite Monkey Cage. She told Express.co.uk: “Biologists are constantly finding new species in the deep sea. Whenever an expedition sends down robots, and occasionally humans into the deep, they come back with creatures that haven’t been seen before – new fish, shrimp, worms, snails, corals, clams, you name it. “As for a giant octopus? Wouldn’t that be amazing! I don’t suppose we can entirely rule it out.
Whether any really big ones are still out there? I’d like to think so, but there’s really no knowing until someone is in the right place at just the right time to spy one
Dr Helen Scales
“I’m quite sure there are undiscovered cephalopods out there (the group that includes octopuses, squid and cuttlefish).
“Whether any really big ones are still out there? I’d like to think so, but there’s really no knowing until someone is in the right place at just the right time to spy one.”
Dr Scales is hoping to hook her audience by painting a fascinating picture of the underwater world.
She explained: “I’m going to take my audience on a dive beneath the waves to reveal the surprising things that go in the lives of some of our favourite sea creatures.
“We will find out the mathematical secrets behind beautiful, spiralling sea shells and discover that all you need are four simple rules to make any shell you want.
“Fish will also feature strongly in my talk (although I won’t be bringing any live animals with me!) as I explore some of their underrated abilities – there are fish that can sing, count, live for 500 years, swim across entire oceans and back, and plenty more besides. And I might squeeze in the odd octopus or two.
She will also be looking to explode a few myths when it comes to fish, not least the famous adage about goldfishes.
She said: “Goldfish definitely have more than a three-second memory. In fact, lots of fish are actually remarkably smart.
“They learn how to use tools and solve problems, they remember things for months and years.
“There are fish that cheat and apologise to each other, and there is even the possibility that some fish have a sense of self-awareness – they know who they are.”
Despite her recent focus on octopuses, and the publication of her recent book Octopuses: A Ladybird Expert Book, Dr Scales resisted the temptation to nominate them as her favourite sea creature.
She explained: “The oceans are full of so many extraordinary species I wouldn’t know how to pick just one. Usually, though, there are particular creatures that I’m studying and writing about, for an article or a book, so I guess I have a species of the day, or the week.
“Lately, my top species have been mudskippers, types of fish that actually breathe better out of water than in it, and the world’s biggest population of seahorses that was recently discovered in a land-locked lake on an island in the Bahamas.”
Despite her fascination with the deep, Dr Scales has not yet managed to get to the bottom of the ocean – although it remains an ambition of hers.
She said: “I haven’t been lucky enough to get a ride in a submersible but I do a lot of scuba diving and free diving.
“I’ve spent hundreds of hours underwater, studying and watching sea life.
“I’ve been down as far as 45 metres (and 20 metres holding my breath) and I’d love to go deeper.”
With concerns over plastic pollution of our oceans and damage to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef much in the news recently, Dr Scales was also keep to stress the important conservation message in her talk.
She said: “We are going through an incredible time for ocean conservation, with so many people more aware than ever of the problems and keen to do something to help. In my talks I try to find a balance between celebrating the wonders of ocean while also pointing out the growing threats.
“I also want to be realistic about the scale of the issues and what needs to be done to solve them.
“We can all do our bit, to eat sustainable seafood (or none at all), to stop using single-use plastics and reduce our personal carbon emissions, but there also need to be more radical shifts too and those will have to come from corporations and governments.
“Bottom line is, humanity has to stop treating the oceans as both an endless rubbish dump for our pollution and as a bottomless store cupboard that we can keep on raiding for food.”
Exploring the wonders of the deep is on the Earth Stage on October 10 between 11.45am and 12.25pm.
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