Page 46 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #12

Built to look like a giant
octopus, the Octopod
is the Octonauts’ HQ,
from which they go on
adventures in their fleet
of submarine vehicles.
Meet the crew

Kwazii
A daredevil cat, Kwazii has a
mysterious pirate past and
enjoys a fight (unless it’s with
a spider – or spider crab!)
Really though, he’s a softy at
heart who would do anything
for his shipmates.

Captain Barnacles
The brave leader of the
Octonauts crew, Barnacles
is an unshrinking polar bear
whose phenomenal strength
gets his crew out of all kinds
determine the plot. So, for example, when
of scrapes. When push comes
the Octopod’s batteries run flat, the crew
to shove, who wouldn’t want
enlists the help of some friendly electric
Barnacles at the helm?
torpedo rays, to jolt it back to life.
On their adventures (think Star Trek Professor Inkling
meets Thunderbirds underwater, with an The father figure and
ursine Jacques Cousteau at the helm), they founder of the Octonauts
befriend a diverse cast of oceanic characters. is a Dumbo octopus. He’s
They meet the snapping shrimp, with its most likely to be found
unfeasibly loud claw clap; the combtooth in his extensive library,
blenny, a fish quite literally out of water; and reading up to eight of
the extraordinary immortal jellyfish, which his precious books at a
in times of threat can revert back to its time – one for each arm!
infant state and begin its life all over again.

Early introductions

Watching BBC One’s Blue Planet II together
last autumn really drove home to me quite
how much my son had absorbed from the
Octonauts. He identified a manta ray as
soon as it drifted onto the screen. When
spinner dolphins were shown,
he explained to us how they use
their different splashes as a
form of communication.
It began to dawn on me that
these Octonauts were doing far
more for my son than giving The gang drive their
propeller-powered ‘Gups’
him 10 minutes of fun while
down an African river,
drinking his bedtime milk. where they encounter
I had initially thought that some territorial hippos.
‘Octonauts’ was just a game
we played in the bath, but to
him they were bringing the
world’s oceans and rivers into
his orbit, and gently feeding
his imagination, at the same
time as teaching him about
life beneath the waves.
Now when we head down to
visit Granny and Grandad on
the coast of North Devon, we

46 BBC Wildlife