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Comment by the_rosentotter | Hacker News Reader

A similar interesting octopus story not mentioned in the article:

A particular light in a German aquarium kept short-circuiting and no one could figure out why. Using camera surveillance it was finally discovered that every night, the octopus would climb to the edge of his tank and shoot a jet of water on the light, shorting it. It was speculated that the light had been bothering the octopus' nocturnal routine.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3328...

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Their answer was to hang the light higher. No explanation for keeping the nightly illumination.

That article is depressing. They nonchalantly attribute the behaviour to boredom and belittling the creature like a child: "Otto is constantly craving for attention and always comes up with new stunts so we have realised we will have to keep more careful eye on him".

Let's not attribute any aspect of his behaviour to the crippling reality of captivity. Oh, no.

There is no more evidence for your theory than theirs. Neither can be proven. So "let's not attribute any aspect of his behaviour" to anything is the only correct response.

> It was speculated that the light was disrupting its nocturnal routine.

That seems to support the previous posters theory.

That's a theory buddy. The word "speculated" might clue you in. Maybe that is the case. It is plausible. Maybe he is 'craving for attention and coming up with stunts'. Also plausible. Unless you're a fucking octopus mind reader, you can't say for sure. We have no evidence either way. Which is what I am trying to explain to developer2, who seems to think he can attribute the octopus' behaviour to the "crippling reality of captivity". He can't. And in fact, humans are notoriously bad at doing this with animal psychology, we tend to anthropomorphize them.

No evidence? You do know that light plays a significant role in circadian rhythms in most animals and can have dire effects on physiology, right?

So that is evidence that the light is motivating the octopus is it?

Another (apocryphal?) octopus story: fish from an aquarium tank disappearing every night, and staff after installing cameras found the octopus crawling out of its tank and eating them. Hence, tanks at Monterey Aquarium are lined with Astroturf which resists octopi suckers.

Seems to be common experience from a number of different octopus keepers: https://www.tonmo.com/threads/midnight-tank-escapes-fact-or-...

That seems really mean - the octopus didn't like the light on during the night, when it was sleeping.

So let's move the light further away, but keep it on, because it suits us to keep it on when he's sleeping =(.

Poor little guy. sigh

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