Page 45 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #12

THE OCTONAUTS

The Octonauts follow an
unusual song and find a
humpback whale who is lonely
because he doesn’t sound like
other whales.These aquatic
adventurers have been on our
screens since 2010.

round 6 o’clock in the with them. Dried and dressed, he snuggles For the uninitiated, the Octonauts are a
evening a shout of up on the sofa with me and his mum to crew of seven animals and one ‘vegimal’
“Bath time!” eventually watch an episode of his favourite TV show. (part vegetable, part animal, and the only
brings my four-year-old Octonauts, a smash-hit on the BBC’s pre- fictitious species in the show), who dedicate
son running. While school channel, CBeebies, consumes our themselves to exploring and protecting the
he’s getting washed household. We’ve got roughly 130 episodes world’s oceans, rivers and lakes, and the
we play a number recorded now and there isn’t a duffer among creatures living in them. Led by the fearless
Aof games, most of them. It’s not only my boy’s favourite show; Captain Barnacles (a stout-hearted polar
which involve me getting drenched. The his mum and I love it, too. If we’d had bear), the Octonauts sail their ‘Octopod’
most popular is when we fill the bath with Octonauts when I was young I’d be a marine craft to every aquatic environment on
Octonauts toys, and various models of sea biologist by now, which is what my son Earth. Each episode focuses on a different
creatures, and have an aquatic adventure wants to be when he grows up. sea creature, whose particular adaptations

December 2018 BBC Wildlife 45