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The getting coconut shell part doesn't impress much. Even snails or hermit crabs know to find abandoned shells to hide in. Seems pretty natural for that class of animals.
And, of course, they're just interesting creatures regardless. Their bodies is flexible, yet strong, like one continuous muscle. Each tentacle has a slightly different "personality;" for a single octopus, some of its tentacles are more adventurous while others are more shy. They can change the color of their entire body, and do, for reasons we haven't figured out yet. They mate once, after which the female guards the egg cache without moving from the spot until she withers away.
Everything I read about them absolutely floors me. They're the closest thing we have to an intelligent alien species.
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If you want an intelligent pet that will likely outlive you, get a parrot.
Actually, please don't. If you want a pet, adopt a dog or cat from the local shelter. At least they have been domesticated long enough that they are better off under human care. Don't keep an animal that had to be captured and removed from its natural habitat.
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Yes, that is interesting. Their nervous systems are more like spiders than vertebrates.
Not that spiders sre necessarily unintelligent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portia_(spider)#Intelligence
So if you love Portia, I recommend Peter Watts' Echopraxia and (for a full-length focus) Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time.
Octopuses are really incredible creatures. They diverged from humans in the evolutionary tree hundreds of millions of years ago. Our common ancestor would have been a very dumb animal. Their brain structure is so different: 8 semi-autonomous tentacles, with one sort of central coordinating body. What could it possibly be like to experience the world that way? They're probably the "peak" of intelligence with the most…
Octopuses are really incredible creatures. They diverged from humans in the evolutionary tree hundreds of millions of years ago. Our common ancestor would have been a very dumb animal. Their brain structure is so different: 8 semi-autonomous tentacles, with one sort of central coordinating body. What could it possibly be like to experience the world that way? They're probably the "peak" of intelligence with the most…
I don't understand what the peak of intelligence means if that is termites, bees, humans? What about dolphins, dogs, not to mention chimpanzees, other great apes are likely smarter then them, but it will take some clever tests and clever categorization of intelligence to understand their sense.
We're quite close to dolphins and killer whales, so the essence of their intelligence is easier for us to understand, because they are more like us.
Bees, termites, ants, etc. are really interesting because any individual is pretty stupid, but the entire swarm is complex and intelligent.
Octopuses are really incredible creatures. They diverged from humans in the evolutionary tree hundreds of millions of years ago. Our common ancestor would have been a very dumb animal. Their brain structure is so different: 8 semi-autonomous tentacles, with one sort of central coordinating body. What could it possibly be like to experience the world that way? They're probably the "peak" of intelligence with the most…
I don't understand what the peak of intelligence means if that is termites, bees, humans? What about dolphins, dogs, not to mention chimpanzees, other great apes are likely smarter then them, but it will take some clever tests and clever categorization of intelligence to understand their sense.
The getting coconut shell part doesn't impress much. Even snails or hermit crabs know to find abandoned shells to hide in. Seems pretty natural for that class of animals.
I imagine the difference is that hermit crabs are exhibiting a rote, inborn behavior that is universal among the species. Cephalopods apparently figure this stuff out on the fly.
Octopi are interesting in that they evolved along their own path. The octopus eye has the wiring on the back, where it belongs, instead of on the front blocking some of the light, as most other animals with eyes do.
A notable advantage of everse eye construction is the complete absence of a blind spot, which is where all the wiring passes through the sensor surface. (Image sensors never had that problem because they are connected at the edges).