NationStates Jolt Archive

Was that person you just saw really a person? It could be The Octopus Menace!!! It seems some octopus have been disguising themselves by running on two legs, so perhaps that isn't really your great aunt Dorothy come to visit! :eek: Explains why the chair is always wet after she's been in it...

Source (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12655331-13762,00.html)


Octopus on two legs
March 26, 2005

TWO species of octopus have been caught on film walking on just two of their eight legs.

One species wraps six of its legs around itself in a tight ball as it jogs backwards across the sea bed on the other two.

The other holds six arms up, frozen like tree branches, as it moves on two arms that seem to act like mini conveyor belts.

The Californian biologist who found the odd behaviour suspects it may be a clever way for the animals to disguise themselves from predators while on the move.

"They are able to do two things at once, camouflage and walk, which is fairly unique for an octopus," said Christine Huffard a graduate student who studied the creatures for nearly a decade.

Octopii rule! If it wasn't because they need all that salty water they would make the best pet.

I heard about that on NPR today! Reportedly, one octopus curls six legs underneath itself so it looks like a coconut, and the other one holds them on top of its head so it looks like algae.

This is reportedly the first instance in natural history of an invertabrate walking on two legs. Exciting stuff!

octopi are really smart.

there was a study done:

a crab was but into a glass jar (with the lid tightened) and dropped into an octopus tank.

some of the octopi could open the jar with no problem.

others couldn't


however, if you put two tanks next to eachother, and dropped a jar into the tank with the smart octopus, the other would watch the first one open the jar, and the next time it was given a jar, it knew how to open it.

i saw it in an episode of Scientific American Frontiers. i'll try to find an article online.

here we go: the transcript of the show.

i don't know if the video is available, but if you are ever channel surfing and see the scientific american fronteirs (PBS) about marine life, that's the one


http://www.pbs.org/saf/transcripts/transcript604.htm


ALAN ALDA (NARRATION) Graziano Fiorito takes his subjects back to the zoological station in Naples, Europe's oldest marine biology laboratory. As an invertebrate, the octopus may be spineless but it is a skilled hunter. Lurking behind a rock, this one is stalking a hermit crab. Octopuses live alone, so it's thought that their hunting skills are partly pre-programmed in their genes and partly self-taught from experience. The idea that a creature as lowly as an octopus might also learn as we do, by watching others, would be heresy to most scientists. But that's just what Fiorito believes he's seen. Here's the challenge he sets for the octopuses he buys from the market - a glass jar containing a crab, and sealed tightly with a plug. Some octopuses, perhaps because they've opened a lot of shells for their dinner, open the jar on their first try. Others, like this one, can be given the jar time and time again without getting inside. I joined Fiorito for the key experiment. The octopus on the right is the one that can open the jar. The one on the left can't.


ALAN ALDA You already gave him a jar and he couldn't do it?

GRAZIANO FIORITO No. Half the population of animals that come from the sea are able to do it and the other half they are unable to do it. So it depends let's say from the individual's experience. There are some octopus that are more skilled than other ones.


ALAN ALDA (NARRATION) The unskilled animal will be given a chance to watch how it's done.


ALAN ALDA So now the octopus over here in this tank is going to watch this one open the jar.

GRAZIANO FIORITO That's right.


ALAN ALDA (NARRATION) Even knowing how to do it didn't help me.


ALAN ALDA I need suction cups on my fingers here. I can't do it.


ALAN ALDA Does he see it yet do you think?

GRAZIANO FIORITO Yes.


ALAN ALDA (NARRATION) The skilled octopus sees the crab immediately and moves in. The unskilled octopus seems to be watching intently, as the skilled one explores the jar.

GRAZIANO FIORITO It's crawling now on the jar and it recognizes the plug. Now its behavior is changed - now it's carrying it right back home to be more safe from the other animal.


ALAN ALDA He doesn't want the other animal to interfere?

GRAZIANO FIORITO That's right.


ALAN ALDA (NARRATION) The performer pulls the plug and the crab is his. Meanwhile, the observer octopus is scrambling for the best view.


ALAN ALDA Do you think that this animal from observing that this time may know how to do it?

GRAZIANO FIORITO We can try.


ALAN ALDA Great, can we see?


ALAN ALDA (NARRATION) Now remember, this animal has never before been able to open the jar. What's new is that he's observed the solution.


ALAN ALDA Oh here he goes, here he goes. Look, look, look, look. Oh wow, look at him. Just went right at it.


ALAN ALDA Look, he got in, he got it open. And he was never able to do that before?

GRAZIANO FIORITO No.


ALAN ALDA This is unbelievable.


ALAN ALDA (NARRATION) What Graziano Fiorito has shown for the first time is that an invertebrate can learn by observing. Social learning like this is a domain of intellect usually reserved for mammals like us. But as I learned in the fish market, you have to you know how to handle an octopus if you want it to show you its secrets.

Octopi are super hardcore.

there was one where the aqurium owners couldn't figure out how there crabs were being stolen. they set up some security cameras and caught the culprit on tape. the octopus in the tank across the aisle would clime out of his tank at night... slide across the floor and climb into the crab tank... kill a crab and drag it back to his tank.