Have you ever heard of Julie Czerneda? She has a series around a shapeshifter character called Esen, whose species (there's a handful of individuals, who are all sort of blobs that separated from an eldest) is/are kind of archivists/anthropologists/spies - they can consume the dna of other species and take on their form and modes of thought. There's a lot of fun stuff about how bodily form shapes how people/cultures interpret and interact with the world (Czerneda is a former biologist and it shows in the range of alien species Esen meets and sometimes transforms into). Each time Esen shifts into a different species, her personality shifts somewhat too, so you have this really interesting exploration of the continuity of the self in different environments and when different people know her as particular versions of herself. It's also a very fun on take on the 'Horrifying Space Blob that Eats You' trope, because Esen really does have to consume living tissue, and from some perspectives she would be/is terrifying. On her first solo 'mission' embedding in a culture, she accidentally reveals herself to a Human scientist, whose response is less fear and more OH THIS IS SO COOL. And they become best friends and have to hide from other humans whose response is way more OH NO SHAPESHIFTING KILLER BLOB FROM OUTER SPACE and eventually they create a library of cultures together. I really love Esen.