Awesome Octopus Intelligence Article

[garbon]

Sounds like he's been reading too much Japanese porn ...

As we gazed into each other's eyes, Athena encircled my arms with hers, latching on with first dozens, then hundreds of her sensitive, dexterous suckers. Each arm has more than two hundred of them. The famous naturalist and explorer William Beebe found the touch of the octopus repulsive. "I have always a struggle before I can make my hands do their duty and seize a tentacle," he confessed. But to me, Athena's suckers felt like an alien's kiss—at once a probe and a caress. Although an octopus can taste with all of its skin, in the suckers both taste and touch are exquisitely developed. Athena was tasting me and feeling me at once, knowing my skin, and possibly the blood and bone beneath, in a way I could never fathom.

[Grey Fox]

Very cool.

I want an Octopus pet.

[HVC]

Get a cuttlefish. They look cooler and won't try to get out of your tank

[Valmy]

Better then Valmy, anyway

Are you kidding?  I am practically infallible.

[jimmy olsen]

In any event, I can believe octopuses are pretty smart. Reminds me of a story I heard many years ago when I was a kid, when I was staying for the summer with my dad at the ocenographic institute at Wood's Hole, Mass.

They had a huge research aquarium there, not open to the public but more like a warehouse full of live sea creatures (with pipes and stuff all over the place), and I had the run of it (probably would not happen these days). Anyway, one day a grad student whose thesis involved some sort of extremely rare species of fish (obtained by the submersible Alvin which was stationed there) noticed one was missing. This was very serious to him, though he could not imagine why anyone would steal it. As mentioned security was lax to non-existent, so anyone could have done it.

Next day, *another* rare fish was gone without trace.

The student was very pissed off and determined to get to the bottom of the thefts. What he did was to arrange to sit within viewing distance of the fish tank for the night.

Well, that night, as soon as he'd settled in and the main lights were off (though of course some of the tanks had their own lights for various experiments), the lid on the tank *next* to his fish tank popped open - and some octopus arms snaked out. They reached and groped into his fish tank, and siezed one of his fish, picked it up, and dragged it into the octopus tank ... and later, after the fish was eaten, the arms reached up again and pulled the lid shut again on the octopus tank.

The theft problem was solved by locking the octopus tank lid from the outside ...

That's pretty cool, definitely shows evidence of thinking ahead about the consequences of its actions.

[Ideologue]

Sounds like he's been reading too much Japanese porn ...

As we gazed into each other's eyes, Athena encircled my arms with hers, latching on with first dozens, then hundreds of her sensitive, dexterous suckers. Each arm has more than two hundred of them. The famous naturalist and explorer William Beebe found the touch of the octopus repulsive. "I have always a struggle before I can make my hands do their duty and seize a tentacle," he confessed. But to me, Athena's suckers felt like an alien's kiss—at once a probe and a caress. Although an octopus can taste with all of its skin, in the suckers both taste and touch are exquisitely developed. Athena was tasting me and feeling me at once, knowing my skin, and possibly the blood and bone beneath, in a way I could never fathom.

You know, I noticed that, but I didn't want to say anything.  I thought the author was just trying to be articulate his feelings of awe and kindship in a way the more jaded of us could only recognize as fodder for tentacle porn jokes.  Malthus: cannot appreciate nature from his vantage of ironic detachment.

[crazy canuck]

In any event, I can believe octopuses are pretty smart. Reminds me of a story I heard many years ago when I was a kid, when I was staying for the summer with my dad at the ocenographic institute at Wood's Hole, Mass.

They had a huge research aquarium there, not open to the public but more like a warehouse full of live sea creatures (with pipes and stuff all over the place), and I had the run of it (probably would not happen these days). Anyway, one day a grad student whose thesis involved some sort of extremely rare species of fish (obtained by the submersible Alvin which was stationed there) noticed one was missing. This was very serious to him, though he could not imagine why anyone would steal it. As mentioned security was lax to non-existent, so anyone could have done it.

Next day, *another* rare fish was gone without trace.

The student was very pissed off and determined to get to the bottom of the thefts. What he did was to arrange to sit within viewing distance of the fish tank for the night.

Well, that night, as soon as he'd settled in and the main lights were off (though of course some of the tanks had their own lights for various experiments), the lid on the tank *next* to his fish tank popped open - and some octopus arms snaked out. They reached and groped into his fish tank, and siezed one of his fish, picked it up, and dragged it into the octopus tank ... and later, after the fish was eaten, the arms reached up again and pulled the lid shut again on the octopus tank.

The theft problem was solved by locking the octopus tank lid from the outside ...

Did this behaviour ever get written up as a paper or did they simply give a sigh a relief that the nuisance was dealt with so they could get on with more important work.

[Malthus]

Sounds like he's been reading too much Japanese porn ...

As we gazed into each other's eyes, Athena encircled my arms with hers, latching on with first dozens, then hundreds of her sensitive, dexterous suckers. Each arm has more than two hundred of them. The famous naturalist and explorer William Beebe found the touch of the octopus repulsive. "I have always a struggle before I can make my hands do their duty and seize a tentacle," he confessed. But to me, Athena's suckers felt like an alien's kiss—at once a probe and a caress. Although an octopus can taste with all of its skin, in the suckers both taste and touch are exquisitely developed. Athena was tasting me and feeling me at once, knowing my skin, and possibly the blood and bone beneath, in a way I could never fathom.

You know, I noticed that, but I didn't want to say anything.  I thought the author was just trying to be articulate his feelings of awe and kindship in a way the more jaded of us could only recognize as fodder for tentacle porn jokes.  Malthus: cannot appreciate nature from his vantage of ironic detachment.

This, comming from a guy whose proud boast is that he can sexualize literally anything. 

[Malthus]

Did this behaviour ever get written up as a paper or did they simply give a sigh a relief that the nuisance was dealt with so they could get on with more important work.

I have no idea - I was 12 years old at the time I heard it, I just though "that's cool!". 

If I was that grad student, I'd have changed my thesis subject on the spot ... 

[To give some idea of just how casual matters were in that place, I loved to watch the squid tank - squid change colour to communicate in a way awesome to see - and one day, while I was watching the squid tank, some Chinese grad student came in, netted a few, and begain to gut them - I asked him what his experiment was and he winked at me and said "lunch".  ).

[Ideologue]

Sounds like he's been reading too much Japanese porn ...

As we gazed into each other's eyes, Athena encircled my arms with hers, latching on with first dozens, then hundreds of her sensitive, dexterous suckers. Each arm has more than two hundred of them. The famous naturalist and explorer William Beebe found the touch of the octopus repulsive. "I have always a struggle before I can make my hands do their duty and seize a tentacle," he confessed. But to me, Athena's suckers felt like an alien's kiss—at once a probe and a caress. Although an octopus can taste with all of its skin, in the suckers both taste and touch are exquisitely developed. Athena was tasting me and feeling me at once, knowing my skin, and possibly the blood and bone beneath, in a way I could never fathom.

You know, I noticed that, but I didn't want to say anything.  I thought the author was just trying to be articulate his feelings of awe and kindship in a way the more jaded of us could only recognize as fodder for tentacle porn jokes.  Malthus: cannot appreciate nature from his vantage of ironic detachment.

This, comming from a guy whose proud boast is that he can sexualize literally anything. 

TBR SANCTITY!!!1