Do Cephalopods Suntan and Other Improbable Field Research into Octopi Intelligence
“There is no way it’s alive,” I stated with the cocksure authority of someone who is either an expert or of someone who is completely and utterly wrong. My friends eyed me dubiously so I looked around for a stick to perform the field procedure (scientifically known as “poking”) for telling if a critter is alive or dead.
Just off the sunny Mediterranean beach, in only a foot or two of water, was the critter in question – each of its eight arms were stretched out lazily in a star-like pattern and its skin was a warm, rusty-brown shade. It was Octopus vulgaris, the common octopus, and observing its limp, sprawled body, I quickly concluded it dead. Or perhaps suntanning.
We approached the octopus carefully and with good reason. Not only were we out-armed, octopi are smart, stubborn animals. They are considered to be the most intelligent of all invertebrates, including congressmen. In laboratory experiments, octopi have been trained to distinguish between shapes and patterns. There have also been reports that they can learn from observing the behavior of other animals around them.
In a marine biology class I took in university, the professor once told the following story to illustrate just how smart octopi can be. A colleague of his was once doing lab research with octopi. The researcher was trying to do some sort of shape identification behavioral training (I’m hazy on the details here) where if the octopus would point to a symbol or push a lever or perhaps text message, it would get a reward.
One particular octopus seemed to resent the manipulation and, out of spite, it refused to participate in the experiments for the researcher. Most animal behavior researchers and biologists don’t use words like “spite” in fear of anthropomorphizing their subjects. However, our professor stated, this one octopus seemed to really hate the researcher.
It wasn’t that it refused to participate in the experiments. It was that it refused to participate in experiments when that particular person was present. Anytime he was in the room, the octopus sat in the corner of its tank and glared stubbornly. However, the octopus would participate in the experiments just fine for the assistants and grad students in the lab. When the primary researcher would come into the room, though, it would stop what it was doing and refuse to do anything more. It was as if the octopus understood who was in charge and had designed the experiment.
The researcher, finding he was being shut out of his own lab, tried to trick the octopus. He tried dressing like a student, he tried walking into the lab backwards, and, as our professor told us, he even tried dressing in drag (which illustrates how far biologists are willing to go for science). Nonetheless, it was all to no avail – the octopus always knew it was him. And, perhaps, it was running its own experiment on the researcher.
In this same lab, our professor told us, another octopus would constantly escape from its tank. Each of the tanks had fresh water constantly being pumped through them. The octopus would sit on top of the outflow pipe, causing the water level of its tank to rise until it overfilled the tank and lifted the lid up. Unfortunately for the octopus, neither the researcher nor any of the lab techs ever left their car keys lying around. The next morning, the researcher would find the creature huddled stubbornly in the corner of the partially flooded lab.
Octopi have a fascinating nervous system that differs greatly from our own. A majority of an octopus's neurons are not in its brain but rather in the nerve cords of its arms, which act as their own mini-minds when it comes to controlling the arm’s movement. A National Geographic article from 2001 explains that the brain inside the octopus skull sees a tasty sea morsel and decides to eat it, but to get the morsel into its mouth the brain inside the skull sends a message to a mass of nerves inside the octopus arm. That mass of nerves controls the arm movement independently from the brain to snatch the tasty treat.
So, that day on the beach, we approached the octopus with caution. If octopi can hold grudges and if their arms have minds of their own, it’s probably best to stay on their good side. When we got close to the water, the “dead” octopus darted away into deeper territory. However, after a few minutes it was back and it seemed to be enjoying the sun.
If octopi really can learn from observation, then I theorize that after seeing thousands of European vacationers sprawled in the sun on Mediterranean beaches, this one wanted to see what the big deal was. Now if only I could get a grant to do a comparative study on human and octopus sun tanning habits.
