My Favorite Animals — A Visual Journey

Chapter 01

The Octopus 🐙

"The most alien intelligence on Earth."

3 Hearts

9 Brains

∞ Colors

If I paid you to come up with the design for an alien for a sci-fi film, there's a good chance you'd come up with something similar to the octopus. The octopus is profoundly alien to us.

It has three hearts, two of which send blood to their gills, while the third sends it through the body. If that's not weird enough, an octopus' blood is blue because it uses a copper-based protein called hemocyanin to transport oxygen instead of iron-based hemoglobin. And if that's not weird enough, two-thirds of an octopus' neurons are located in its arms—each arm can taste, touch, and make independent decisions without consulting the central brain!

Masters of Disguise

Octopi have the most advanced camouflage system in the animal kingdom. Because of their complex biology, they have a near infinite color palette. They have specialized cells called chromatophores that contain pigment sacs that expand and contract, causing color changes.

Below those, they have iridophores that reflect light and leucophores that scatter it. But having infinite colors isn't enough in the animal kingdom.

In addition to infinite colors, octopi can change texture! Their skin can be smooth, bumpy, have ridges, or even spikes! This, along with their boneless body, means that a 50 pound octopus can fit under the crack in your door.

Some species, like the mimic octopus, can impersonate other animals entirely—including lionfish, flatfish, and sea snakes. And if all of that wasn't enough, octopi can edit their own RNA in real-time to adapt to their environment. Most animals are stuck with whatever their DNA gives them, but octopi get to change as they see fit.

Incredible Intelligence

On top of all these purely physical capabilities, octopi are incredibly smart. They're able to navigate mazes, play piano, and develop distinct personalities—some bold and curious, others shy and cautious.

In the wild, some octopi have been shown carrying coconut shell halves to use as portable shelters, one of the few examples of tool use and forward planning in invertebrates!

Their problem-solving skills are so good that many aquariums have had to design escape-proof enclosures because some octopi open their tanks, crawl across the floor, enter other tanks to eat fish, and return home before anyone can see it.

Tragically, despite all this intelligence and capability, octopi have incredibly short lifespans—typically just 1-5 years :(

Fun fact

Technically, octopi have arms, not tentacles! Octopus arms have suckers along the whole length, while tentacles have suckers only at the tips.

Chapter 02

The Peregrine Falcon 🦅

"The fastest animal on Earth."

240+ MPH Dive Speed

8x Human Vision

1mi+ Prey Detection

When you think of a fast animal, you probably think of a cheetah. While a cheetah is the fastest land animal, the fastest animal in the world is the Peregrine Falcon. Tucking its wings tight against its body, it enters a hunting dive called a stoop, reaching speeds over 240 mph. That's faster than a Formula 1 car, faster than most skydiving humans, and 3x faster than a cheetah.

I know what you may be thinking... "Well, falling from the sky isn't as impressive." And while I somewhat agree on the surface, there's more to the story than this.

At these speeds, the air pressure alone would destroy most birds' lungs. But the peregrine has evolved a special tubercle—a small cone-shaped structure in its nostrils—that redirects airflow and lets it breathe while diving at speeds that would suffocate any other bird.

Built for Speed

Every part of the peregrine falcon is optimized for speed. Their wings are long, pointed, and swept back like a fighter jet's. Their feathers are stiff and tight, reducing drag. Their keel (the bone that anchors flight muscles) is enormous relative to body size, giving them explosive power.

But perhaps their most remarkable feature is their vision. As expected of falcons, they can spot prey from over a mile away. But their best feature? They see the world in slow motion.

While humans have a "flicker fusion frequency" (the speed at which our brain perceives individual flashes of light as a solid image) of about 60 Hz, the peregrine falcon reaches approximately 129 Hz. To a Peregrine, a movie (shot at 24 frames per second) wouldn't look like a moving picture; it would look like a boring, slow slideshow of individual photos.

This means when a pigeon is flying at full speed (a blur to us), it appears slow and distinct to the falcon, allowing for the precision needed to strike a moving target at 240 mph.

At these speeds, a speck of dust can act like a small bullet, potentially blocking vision. To combat this, falcons have a translucent third eyelid that sweeps horizontally like a high-speed windshield wiper.

Fun fact

Peregrines are "avivores," meaning they specialize in eating other birds, and they aren't picky... they hunt up to 20% of all known bird species on Earth.

The Comeback Kid

Peregrine falcons have a long history with humans. Nomads in Central Asia used them for falconry over 3,000 years ago, and in medieval Europe, they were symbols of nobility.

But in the mid-20th century, they nearly went extinct. The pesticide DDT accumulated in their food chain, causing their eggshells to become so thin they'd break under the weight of an incubating parent. By 1970, there were only 39 known breeding pairs in the entire United States.

After DDT was banned in 1972, one of the most successful conservation efforts in history began. Scientists bred falcons in captivity and released them into the wild through a process called hacking—raising chicks in artificial nests until they could hunt on their own. Shoutout science :)

Today, peregrine falcons have made a remarkable recovery. They've adapted to urban environments, nesting on skyscrapers and bridges where the abundance of pigeons provides easy hunting. They now live on every continent except Antarctica, equally at home on Arctic cliffs, desert canyons, and Manhattan rooftops.

Fun fact

Peregrine falcons strike their prey with a clenched foot at the end of their dive. The impact is so powerful—estimated at over 25 times the force of gravity—that it usually kills or stuns the prey instantly. They then circle back to catch the falling bird mid-air. Cold...