Martin Moynihan

Martin Moynihan (February 5 1928 - December 3 1996) was an influential behavioral evolutionary biologist who studied under Ernst Mayr and Niko Tinbergen, and was a contemporary of Desmond Morris and various other famous ethologists.

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His early research was mainly on seagulls as they were ubiquitous and easy to observe. Later work included even the octopus, and Terence McKenna quotes Moynihan in his book "Food of the Gods" as saying, with respect to this creature's remarkable ability to change its body's shape, texture and color, "Like the octopi, our destiny is to become what we think, to have our thoughts become our bodies and our bodies become our thoughts."

He died in 1996 of lung cancer.