In Kenna’s upcoming book, Octopus X, published by Island Press, discover the story of the Larger Pacific Striped Octopus (LPSO): a creature so strange and misunderstood that for decades, many scientists refused to believe it existed at all.

Once dismissed as myth, this octopus defied everything we thought we knew about octopuses: it lived in groups, mated beak-to-beak, and even laid multiple clutches of eggs without dying. At the center of this octopus’s rediscovery is citizen scientist Arcadio Rodaniche, a Panamanian diver and artist whose groundbreaking work on the LPSO in the 1970s was rejected, buried, and nearly forgotten, until a new generation of researchers brought his findings back to light nearly 30 years later.

In Octopus X, Kenna weaves science, history, and human persistence into a gripping narrative that ranges from the hunt for the octopus off the coast of Panama to the dimly lit shelves of the Smithsonian Archives to the bubbling tanks of octopus pet-keepers. Through the book, she explores what makes the Larger Pacific Striped Octopus so unique and how one man’s persistence changed the field forever.