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The Incredible Tool Using Octopi
Topic Started: Dec 15 2009, 11:34 AM (2,101 Views)
TheCoon
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It's being discovered that the species Amphioctopus marginatus is capable of using tools.
This species were allready known for their bipedal behaviour in which they used two of their tentacles to walk in an orstrich-like fashion underwater, but know scientists also discovered that this species carefully opens the coconuts in halve and uses the halves as an armor. Don't belive me? Then read this:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=a-tool-wielding-octopus-this-invert-2009-12-14
Edited by TheCoon, Dec 15 2009, 11:34 AM.
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ATEK Azul
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I just read it that is awsome! Where did you learn they walk on 2 legs?
I am dyslexic, please ignore the typo's!
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Canis Lupis
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

"How'd you get those coconuts?" asks a scientist, once humanity has figured out how to speak to octopi.
"We found them," says an octopus.
"Found them? The coconut grows on land. How'd you find one in the ocean?"
"The seal and the sea turtle may make excursions onto land, as may the crab. Yet these are not strangers to our lands."
"Are you suggesting coconuts are aquatic?"
"Not at all! They could be carried."
"What, a crab carry a coconut?"
"It could grip it by the husk!" says the octopus.
"It's not a question of where he grips it. It's a simple matter of weight ratios. A 9 ounce crab simply could not carry a ten pound coconut."
"Please!"
"Am I right?"
"I'm not interested."
"It could be carried by a Japanese crab," pipes in another scientist.
"Well...yeah. A Japanese crab, maybe. But not an American crab, that's my point," says the first scientist.
"Oh yes. You're right there."
"Come Patsy," says the octopus as he walks away, annoyed.
[pause]
"Though suppose two crabs carried it together," says the second scientist.
"Now you're just being silly," says the first.




Sorry. I couldn't help but think of Monty Python when I heard "coconut". :D


Anyway, interesting. No fire for octopi, but coconuts. ALL RIGHT!!! Yeah!

Gentlemen (and the very few ladies), I think we are witnessing the evolution of civilization. Then again, I could just be reading too much into this.
Edited by Canis Lupis, Dec 15 2009, 03:47 PM.
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TheCoon
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ATEK Azul
Dec 15 2009, 03:25 PM
I just read it that is awsome! Where did you learn they walk on 2 legs?
"In March 2005, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, published an article in Science in which A. marginatus was reported to have a bipedal behavior. It is one of only two octopus species known to display such behavior, the other species being Abdopus aculeatus. According to the article, this behavior was discovered in an area off Sulawesi, Indonesia, where the sandy bottom was littered with coconut shells. The bipedal motion appears to mimic a floating coconut."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veined_Octopus
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Bipedal tool using octopi... hmm... Why do I wish Lovecraft could be here?

Anyway, this is pretty awesome. An octopi that knows true tool use, now all we need is to see them using language and complex social behavior.
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Canis Lupis
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

Well, you've got language already. Look at color changing. As for complex social behavior, they've got simple social behavior. Heck, they can already play.

Ever notice how octopi sometimes take tubes and send them through the jetstream in lab tanks? That's molluscan (or cephalopodian) play.
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I don't think octopi have complex enough color changing to be an intricate language. Opalescent Squid on the other hand...

I have never heard of that tube thing before.
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Canis Lupis
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

Sorry. I should have added "could easily evolve into language". Much like elephant trumpeting, dolphin clicks, or bird song. In fact, my favorite creature from TFIW: the swampus. An amphibious octopus that actually utilized color change to communicate with other swampuses and to attempt to warn predators or anything that might step on its young.


I got the tube thing from a Discover article I read when I was doing a research paper on cephalopodian intelligence.
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Oh, I remember the Swampus! That was a pretty cool idea. Sharks had the same ability, though, you'd thing that would impede hunting.
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TheCoon
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Oh yeah! The only plausible cephalopod in TFIW! But I don't think that octopuses would need to move to land in order to evolve intelligence. They are perfectly capable of doing it inside the water.
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ATEK Azul
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Has any body Figuered out here that Intellegence doesn't need fire?

All it needs is aquatic volcanism and heat resistence(atleast).

Also my first thought was Cthulu is comming!! Even if I know very little about Lovecraft's work.
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Ànraich
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L'évolution Spéculative est moi

You don't even need heat resistance! All you need is a long stick...You find underwater...Where there are no trees... :(
Edited by Ànraich, Dec 15 2009, 06:40 PM.
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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ATEK Azul
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Or.... You can use a long peice of coral that you have breed to survive with out light?
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Canis Lupis
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Dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the Earth.

Well, keep in mind fire is doused by water.

Anyway, fire isn't necessary. It's just a bonus.
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ATEK Azul
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That is where volcanism comes in because it doesn't use fire just heat.
I am dyslexic, please ignore the typo's!
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