Octopuses Carry Coconuts as Instant Shelters | Hacker News Reader

Octopuses Carry Coconuts as Instant Shelters

news.nationalgeographic.com

205 pointskqr227 comments

There was a story not long ago about an octopus in a German aquarium. Apparently, the museum noticed that a particular lamp was always broken. With the help of surveillance, they discovered that every night, an octopus in a nearby tank would climb his tank to an elevated position and shortcircuit the lamp by spitting water on it. The lamp had been disturbing the squid's sleep, causing it to take active measures.

They display extraordinary intelligence for such a 'different' creature. As far as I know their nearest related species is the spider, which also displays a very high degree of aptitude for its kind.

Edit: Here's the story: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3328...

As far as I know their nearest related species is the spider

A cephalopod's ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod ) closest relative is an arachnid? I don't think so.

Wikipedia has taken all the fun out of arguing :). Thanks for the correction.

There's also soem great videos of Octopi solving mazes. What's particularly interesting is not that they win quickly, but that they cheat - 'choose your own adventure' style - extending one arm into each possible outcome, and only investigating those where the outcome allows further exploration.

They're amazing animals, and really blow away the whole concept of invertebrates not having great intellects.

Octopuses (or my preferred octopodes :) are so amazing. I never get tired of watching videos of them mimic (see prawn's comment), escape from boxes ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-azBDt0kik ), and camouflage themselves ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NQUqR_YpsA ). Can't wait until I can buy clothes with chromatophores.

For a while, I was really into fishkeeping and really wanted to get an octopus as a pet. They are supposedly really smart and quickly learn new tasks (like the opening of a jar).

The problem with having them in a small tank is that they are amazing escape artists and can slip through the smallest of holes. Also as a downer, they typically live only 12-18mos and they can't be bred in captivity, so I eventually gave up the idea.

Ah... so that's how coconuts migrate. There is no string, or birds.

National Geographic video of an octopus eating a shark:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9A-oxUMAy8

That's got to be the most annoying voiceover I've ever heard.

A song inspired by that video (or possibly a similar one): http://www.jonathancoulton.com/2007/06/07/im-back-2/

That video is ridiculously awesome.

I wanted the octopus to eat the narrator instead of the shark! Where's David Attenborough when you need him?

Whilst this is amazing to watch, I have to admit I didn't even know that Octopuses could walk around on their tentacles like they do in the video.

Like snakes, different species--or if you'd like, different cultures of octopus have different methods of locomotion.

Also, I don't know if you noticed but when it was walking with the coconut, it changed its skin color to the color of the ocean floor to mask itself, and then when it tucked into the coconut, it turned itself dark, so it was hard to tell it wasn't an empty coconut.

Indonesian Mimic Octopus (mimics lion fish, sea snake, flounder) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8oQBYw6xxc

Octopus as a coconut rolling on ocean floor http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wgla5smg64

Opening a jar http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocWF6d0nelY

Very cool, but I have to question one statement from the article.

"""The coconut-carrying behavior makes the veined octopus the newest member of the elite club of tool-using animals—and the first member without a backbone, researchers say."""

What about hermit crabs, trap door spiders, and those crabs that build refuse that they find on their shells as camo?

In each of these cases the organism is using an external object(s) as a form of shelter/protection/camo, in the same way the octopus is. While we are more accustomed to them as they are common, there seems to be very few differences in behavior. We are simply seeing the first generation of a new trait amongst some octopi. Of course any new trait, especially one as nifty as this is cool, it seems like a stretch to call them the first invertibrate tool-user.

I believe the stated difference is that, contrary to e.g. the hermit crab, the octopus found the tool in one place, then took it somewhere else (to the other coconut half) in order to use it, exhibiting a planning capability beyond just taking advantage of the immediate surroundings.

It does seem a rather arbitrary criterion (trap door spiders seem to plan rather well too) but that is the reasoning they stated.

All hermit crabs use shells, all trapdoor spiders lay traps. I'm assuming that's the main difference between them and this octopus.

What intrigues me the most is how a sea creature like the octopus can take advantage of an element that's not even from its domain.

I think these octopuses are found in relatively shallow waters so coconuts washing out to this area from beaches is not entirely uncommon.

First time I see an Hacker Octopus.

I first saw this in Robert Full's TED talk. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/robert_full_on_animal_mov...

Repeat, sort of: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=994797

how does it understand coconut shell does protect him?

Some hack. (I'm guessing that's the joke here?)

An English Octopus or an African Octopus?

If i remember, they used to have shells in their evolutionary history (like the nautilus).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com