The Lady and the Octopus: How Jeanne Villepreux-Power Invented Aquariums and Revolutionized Marine Biology

This account traces the work of French-born, self-taught scientist Jeanne Villepreux-Power during the 1830s. To study living marine animals instead of preserved specimens, she devised an early form of the aquarium and later adapted it for observing animals in their natural surroundings. Working off the coast of Sicily, she focused on argonauts, octopuses that travel with shells. Her research showed that they make and repair those shells, and she identified the male argonaut for the first time. In a scientific world dominated by men who doubted women’s abilities, she pursued recognition for her work. After a shipwreck destroyed much of her research and documentation, she began rebuilding it.