Octopuses caught on camera throwing things at each other

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03592-w

by hhs • 4 years ago

504 185 4 years ago

nature.com

barbazoo• 4 years ago

I'm reading Children of Ruin, that's how it starts.

FredPret• 4 years ago

I find Star Trek’s aliens so human-like that it ruins the whole thing for me. But Children of Ruin is so much better!

Karawebnetwork• 4 years ago

My head-canon for this has always been the universal translator also translated the physical appearance of beings so that you could read their body language. This explains why everyone looks like humans with a slightly different color and head shape. In some cases, like energy beings and giant slimes, it simply cannot translate anything and displays the original being.

This head-canon melts in the face of the actual lore, but it helps me suspend disbelief.

citrusynapse• 4 years ago

Steven King's lesser known From A Buick 8 is a surprisingly good slow-burner that has one of my favorite depictions of extradimensional creatures to date.

three_seagrass2• 4 years ago

Children of Time: Cute spider pop-up book

Children of Ruin: Parasitic space horror

Barrin92• 4 years ago

Also very relevant and literally just published a few weeks ago (and a very good read):

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374605957/themountaininth...

tarentel• 4 years ago

The third and final? book, Children of Memory, is coming out next year.

yitchelle• 4 years ago

For some reason, I imagined it would use its eight appendages and throw things like you see in a cartoon. Maybe I am watching too many cartoons. :-)

mod• 4 years ago

Like those wiz-kids on the arcade basketball machines?

excalibur• 4 years ago

No you're onto something, "throw" seems like it might not be the most appropriate verb here. This is more akin to blowing or spitting.

euroderf4• 4 years ago

I would LOVE to see the octopus version of Road Runner cartoons. The part of Wile E Coyote would have to be recast.

bitwize2• 4 years ago

Oh, yeah, man, that riveting nature documentary -- Squiddly Diddly.

4gotunameagain• 4 years ago

May I suggest a book to anybody that finds cephalopods interesting, especially given the connection with consciousness which is a recurring topic in these circles:

Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness

My only critique is that the plural spelling is octopuses and not octopi, just like the article. Octopuses just looks wrong and sounds funny, I stand my ground. Yes yes I know that it's not a Latin word.

dharmab• 4 years ago

If you want to get really pedantic, use Octopodes :)

CoastalCoder• 4 years ago

If you want to get really pedantic

Well that certainly got our attention. Please, continue.

pvaldes2• 4 years ago

Octopoda is the order, better not mix both terms

mc322• 4 years ago

English plural vs Latin vs Greek. Since its origin is Greek I’d take the anglicized plural or the original plural over the superimposed Latin plural which makes absolutely no sense to me.

Telemakhos• 4 years ago

In ancient Greek πολύπους (polypus) is the more common and generic term, ὀκτάπους (octapus) the term for the animal, and ὀκτόπους (octopus) a possible synonym that seems to be used more often for the scorpion (which also has eight legs) or as an adjective for anything that is eight feet long or of eight square feet in size. Really, the English should be "octapus" or "polypus," and curmudgeons who want to feel superior to hoi illiterati polloi should cherish this treasure of pointless trivia.

bananarchist2• 4 years ago

No, the plural is octopodes, just like cactus->cactodes, virus->virodes and surplus-surplodes (my favorite)

mc322• 4 years ago

I always thought it was virus and virus given its root.

daveslash2• 4 years ago

It may be a word like "fishes". I once saw "fishes" on an interpretive sign at an aquarium and some folks were mocking such and obvious grammatical error. Turns out, "fish" is the correct way to refer to multiple individual fish as a group, whereas "fishes" is the correct way to refer to multiple species of fish.

I wonder if "octopi" might refer to multiple octopus without making any indication as to weather they are or are not the same species, whereas 'octopodes' deliberately speaks across speciation? I dunno... I'm just spit-balling here. I probably should have done more research before commenting. Downvote if I'm way off base. :)

DFHippie3• 4 years ago

Virus is the only neuter second declension Latin noun in -us (as opposed to -um). It means "poison" in Latin. I assume this was all meant tongue-in-cheek, but in case anyone is curious, the Latin plural is not virodes.

All of this is recalled from my high school Latin, which was a long time ago.

annyeonghada• 4 years ago

In latin the word virus does not have an attested plural[1] but if we model it from the other neuter nouns of the second declension it would be "vira".

[1]https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/virus#Declension_4

The plural of surplus is surpluses[2]. It would be *surplures/surplura in latin, so it is an English/French original. It doesn't make sense from an historical linguistic perspective to have a stem in dental "d" when in latin was in liquid "r": plus, pluris[3].

[2]https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/surplus#Noun [3]https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/plus#Declension

Cactus is a masculine name from the second declension: its latin plural is "cactī"[4]. Again, it would be unexplainable how that stem in dental would appear in a second declension name (stem in "o").

[4]https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cactus#Latin

Octopus is right, given that it's a third declension name with a dental stem.[5]

[5]https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/octopus#Latin

cph123• 4 years ago

I googled "cactodes" and this comment was the 7th result on the first page.

bmitc• 4 years ago

Either is fine. Octopuses or octopodes. The latter is the technical answer, but the former is acceptable and probably even more common. Although it is based on a Greek word, English isn’t Greek.

staplung• 4 years ago

The correct form is to sum up the legs involved. So two of the eight-legged creatures whose plural is in doubt would be hexadecapods. And if you have an octopus eating a kangaroo you'd then have a decapod, and so on.

lalos• 4 years ago

what is the plural for campus?

jl6• 4 years ago

abacus->abacodes

nautilus->nautilodes

anus->anodes

barrenko• 4 years ago

Isn't it virii (joke)?

nerdponx2• 4 years ago

Not so fast.

"virus" is a nonstandard Latin mass noun. It's neuter, but uses the 2nd declension masculine nominative, and being a mass noun it had no plural form in classical Latin. However if you wanted to give it a plural form, the grammatically correct plural would be "vira". This construction would be analogous to "fishes" or "waters" in English.

"surplus" comes to us via Old French, so its plural perhaps should be whatever plurals were in Old French. However it also originates in Latin as "superplus", which is the prefix "super" + the adjective "plus". The word "plus" itself is also irregular. Its masculine or feminine nominative plural is "plures", and its neuter nominative plural is "plura".

I admit that "superplodes" is pretty fun to say.

smeagull2• 4 years ago

Actually we're speaking English, and not Greek or Latin, so we add an 's' or 'es'.

Just because some English professor assholes wanted to show off their knowledge of foreign languages in the 17-19th centuries, doesn't mean we should follow those rules now. They are responsible for a lot of the confusion and horrible English rules that users of English now have to deal with. I say shit on their horrible legacy.

stevenwoo4• 4 years ago

some recent speculative sci-fi on same subject, The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler set in near future Vietnam.

pacaro• 4 years ago

Or you can choose not to use the inflectional morphology of another language on a loanword. Especially in a case like octopus where it (arguably) isn't a loanword

LightG• 4 years ago

Octopussies, natch.

mike10921• 4 years ago

If someone at a party complained to me that octopuses is wrong and it should be octopi, I would most likely be moving on to the next table..

space_ghost• 4 years ago

And I would happily jump in your vacant seat and enjoy hours of pedantic discussions on the vagaries of silly English words.

Moissanite• 4 years ago

And you'd be right to do so - life is too short for spending time with people who are wrong: https://oceanconservancy.org/blog/2022/02/01/plural-octopus/

unsupp0rted• 4 years ago

The plural spelling is whatever plural people generally use. Why wouldn't it be?

pmb_3• 4 years ago

I'd have to give an anti-recommendation to this book. The author never explains his thesis and the book reads like his thesis was "Octopuses are cool" and spends the entire time listing fun facts and interesting stories about his interactions with cephalopods.

He spends very little time drawing connections to consciousness or speaking about what octopus life can tell us about consciousness. There is a whole chapter where he talks about the influence of language in human action (like self-talk), and then ends the chapter by with something like "and octopuses don't have this ability". What was the point of that whole chapter then?

Maybe my expectations were miscalibrated, and I thought he would spend more time drawing connections between octopuses and humans, and what those similarities could tell us about consciousness. Instead of that, the writing about consciousness in this book is quite shallow.

xcambar• 4 years ago

Is there a book or resource you would recommend then?

comboy• 4 years ago

Same. I had huge expectations. Basically what you learn is that octopuses are intelligent and for a long time we didn't realize because they are smart enough to know they are in custody when we catch them and they're pretty social. I mean, it's OK, but the whole book feels a bit like a preface to the thing which never came.

JadeNB• 4 years ago

the book reads like his thesis was "Octopuses are cool" and spends the entire time listing fun facts and interesting stories about his interactions with cephalopods.

That sounds like a recommendation to me!

Matumio2• 4 years ago

Having read that book, yes, "Octopuses are cool" is a pretty good summary. It's worth reading it for that.

On the biology part, if you never have heard of terms like "efference copy" it will be interesting food for thought about what consciousness might be, but no "solution" really. And you'll learn that an octopus is a ten megapixel screen, but that's just the first point again. If you only want that first point, there is also a "My Octopus Teacher" on Netflix, which is great in its own way.

If you wanted to read about human intelligence, I suggest "The Secret of Our Success" by Henrich instead.

hbarka• 4 years ago

I mean even for humans consciousness has been a mystery. I throw, therefore I am.

kennend3• 4 years ago

The Octopus is my favourite animal (second is the Camel).

For others who may find them interesting check out "My Octopus Teacher"

thenoblesquid• 4 years ago

Definitely checking that out. I've stopped eating Octopus. They are just on another level.

867-5309• 4 years ago

IIRC on QI they said it's octopodes, the -pus becoming -podes in the plural as foot to feet

joeconway• 4 years ago

Also this https://www.scribd.com/book/317091083/The-Soul-of-an-Octopus...

jtchang• 4 years ago

Actually you are slightly wrong (but only if you are british). Per the merriam webster editor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s166nC_hiZ0&ab_channel=Sebas...

the__alchemist• 4 years ago

See Also: Children of Ruin.

smeagull2• 4 years ago

For pedants it's octopodes because its a Greek root, but the sort of people who think that way are the worst and are responsible for screwing up English a lot, so fuck those nerds.

If you're speaking English then you just add an s or es. So Octopuses is right.

dragonwriter• 4 years ago

Yes yes I know that it's not a Latin word.

It came into English from scientific (not classical) latin, so it kind of is.

poglet• 4 years ago

The Kindle version of the book is currently free for Prime users.

bearmode• 4 years ago

Octopuses, octopodes, and octopi are all prefectly valid in modern English. There is an argument to be made that we should respect the greek root, but Octopi has been used for so long that it is a modern English word

martopix• 4 years ago

As a person who studied both latin and ancient greek in high school, Octopi makes my eyes bleed.

DizzyDoo• 4 years ago

As a counterpoint, The Atlantic ran an interesting article[0] yesterday suggesting that it's not really clear what the Octopuses' aims are when they do this, and that we do really like to anthropomorphize them.

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/11/gloomy-o...

addaon• 4 years ago

They really like being anthropomorphized.

curious_cat_163• 4 years ago

Maybe they are just confused about the whole thing, you know. :)

ghostbrainalpha• 4 years ago

Thank you for this. Perfect joke.

inopinatus• 4 years ago

There can be little doubt that octopodes routinely complain to one another about cephalopodizing humans. The low number of appendages, inflexible bodies, and erratic self-destructive behaviour make it hard to take seriously any claims that homo sapiens is anything but the simple-minded, land-bound, fear-driven mammal it appears to be.

rhn_mk1• 4 years ago

It's as much as the article says:

“We weren’t able to try and assess what the reasons might be,”

schkolne• 4 years ago

tx for sharing love this quote:

What looks intentional to one observer may seem accidental to another. “A lot of animal-behavior analysts would look at the same sequence of behavior and give a different interpretation,”

chmod775• 4 years ago

Engaging in play is not unique to humans, so assuming an animal is just fooling around is not anthropomorphizing anything.

jdironman• 4 years ago

It makes me wonder if they engage in "play" does it evoke some "emotion" in them such as joy etc? some reward maybe? and if it does does other scenarios evoke other emotions we consider to be human centric. Anyone have a link to a good paper regarding it?

dolphinboiiii3• 4 years ago

It's amazing that some people are so arrogant that they think humans are the only species capable of playing and being anything but bots that respond to stimulation.

It's equally ignorant to assume they don't have emotions as it is to assume they do. We literally don't know, but the harm in assuming they don't is people get a free pass to be cruel without guilt. If you assume they do then maybe you'll think twice about torturing animals or destroying their habitats.

klabb32• 4 years ago

we do really like to anthropomorphize them.

Yes, people tend to over-anthropormphize in the sense they map to specific human concepts. But otoh, we tend to greatly underestimate the complexity of animal behavior. Sometimes people mix these up. So, just because an anthropomorphization isn't correct, doesn't mean that the behavior isn't complex.

Even animals like spiders and ants demonstratw incredible complex behavior, for social, hunting, sanitation purposes etc. So don't feel bad about anthropomorphizing, as long as you are aware it's just fun speculation. There are infinite mysteries in animal behavior and it's absolutely fascinating. There is so much left to explore.

mentalpiracy• 4 years ago

It seems quite easy to conflate complexity with anthropomorphism, because we see ourselves as the apex, of sorts.

austinjp• 4 years ago

Yep. I've kinda gone full circle on this. My view now is that it's increasingly difficult to say exactly what makes humans special or unique, if anything [0]. So it's overly anthropocentric to deny the possibility that other species have analogous experiences of the world, or experiences which are richer than ours, or completely inconceivable by us [1].

Sure, there will be people that do anthropomorphise the octopus' actions, but this doesn't deny the possibility that an octopus can experience something analogous to feeling pissed off. (See: my table has four legs therefore it's a dog.)

To preempt those who might say "ah, but you can't prove that an octopus does have any form of consciousness" I'd point out that it's practically impossible to do that with humans too.

[0] It's certainly not one single ability. Perhaps some fuzzy superset of fuzzy sets.

[1] I include consciousness in "experiences", and I'd suggest that human-type consciousness is just one among very many.

jhanschoo• 4 years ago

On the other hand, evolutionary pressures and constraints of communication and game theory are frequently similar, and hence often lead to similar functional behavior even if the underlying systems are not homologous.

dolphinboiiii3• 4 years ago

Anthropomorphizing animals is probably a good thing. Maybe we can gain some sympathy for fellow living things. The people like Joe Rogan that say it's 'dangerous' to anthropomorphize are, well, people like Joe Rogan.

The worst that can happen is you have empathy for them.

tshaddox• 4 years ago

Have been caught throwing things at each other. Like it’s illegal!

https://youtu.be/sivmld0X8eE

Jun8• 4 years ago

When I first read the title for some reason I envisioned the throw to look like a sentinel throwing a bomb in The Matrix. Nothing like that, obviously.

My question is: was it throwing the shells out since it’s done eating them or in response to the other octopus that’s sort of messing with it?

jasonjmcghee• 4 years ago

The shells throwing example wasn't as convincing as the silt throwing example.

test1235• 4 years ago

"... although some of the time it seemed that they were just throwing away debris or food leftovers, it did sometimes appear that they were throwing things at each other."

That one instance is kinda hard to tell, but it sounds like they saw similar behaviour across observations.

rojobuffalo• 4 years ago

it's interesting how the constraint of being in water limits inhabitants from developing technologies like fire and throwing projectiles for hunting. octopuses seem like they have the physiology and neurology to figure out projectiles and even grinding a sharp point, but that strategy wouldn't give them the same boost it did early humans because of the drag of water. construction and engineering is also made difficult by tides and erosion so they don't take it much farther than piling up some shells and rocks for a little sleep spot.

colechristensen2• 4 years ago

Octopus species just don’t live long enough to develop much intelligence or culture. Most of them only live a year and die after reproducing.

intrasight2• 4 years ago

Some live to five years. Long enough to get clever.

stevenwoo4• 4 years ago

Since the mother dies at hatching of the eggs, there can be no culture where knowledge is transferred. There would need to be some evolutionary change where the mother does not die at that point or the father does not die after insemination. They still can be very intelligent but they have to learn everything in their short lifespan that is not instinctual. The species also has a tool that humans do not possess - extensive RNA editing to adapt. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-00612-y

intrasight2• 4 years ago

It's interesting then to contemplate what kind of society we would have if we had developed our level of sentience but done so under water. Anybody know of any good sci-fi that explores that?

dolphinboiiii3• 4 years ago

You don't need sci-fi. Go to the ocean and look at some Dolphins or Orcas and you'll see it in real life.

UncleOxidant• 4 years ago

Social networking in a clam shell.

hinata08• 4 years ago

Or reality TV

Futurama was right, about the future of TV being in hypnotic frogs and the like.

iAm25626• 4 years ago

Children of Ruin – Adrian Tchaikovsky interesting read on cephalopods in a sci-fi/evolution context

lzooz• 4 years ago

pvaldes2• 4 years ago

Fetch, little Octavius, Fetch!

chrisfinazzo• 4 years ago

"What's that they're flinging at us!?"

"Oh, dear Lord, all over the Dean!"

gaudat• 4 years ago

Splatoon 4 is looking good huh

smileybarry• 4 years ago

Reminds me of that video of the two fish spitting sand at each other. One is digging a hole by spitting sand out, the other spits sand back at it just because.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePH6Ky0YWZA

sominash• 4 years ago

Apparently that's common behavior for all fish, not just octopuses. Here are 2 fish, each borrowing their own tunnel, and each spitting on each other, trying to block opponent's tunnel:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3O4sYndUdsI

lolc• 4 years ago

“The environment for these specific octopuses is such that they have this interaction between individuals,” she says. “It’s communication, in a way.”

Watching it, I immediately classify the behavior as aggression. Why they would stop at "communication" is not clear to me.

bell-cot• 4 years ago

Ah, if only Gary Larson was still writing The Far Side comics...

stevenwoo4• 4 years ago

He started limited production on web comics. https://www.thefarside.com/new-stuff

FrameworkFred• 4 years ago

"I'm glad there was no internet to record MY behavior when I was growing up!" --an old octopus, 11/10/2022

z9znz• 4 years ago

“The environment for these specific octopuses is such that they have this interaction between individuals,” she says. “It’s communication, in a way.”

It seems naive to assume they don't have communication (more frequent and more complex), even though we may not have noticed or been able to detect it.

stevenwoo4• 4 years ago

Every time I see one of these types of studies I always wonder if they controlled for all the spectrum detectable to the creature in question or the olfactory senses of the test subject when it is not explicitly mentioned.

plasma_beam• 4 years ago

Really cool, though a reminder(?) of how we don't give other life forms enough credit for their thinking ability. I looked out in my backyard the other week and saw two foxes playing together with my kids' volleyball they left in the yard. Like grasping it with mouth, tossing it, going to get it, wrestling each other. Amusing stuff.

101008• 4 years ago

I adopted a dog (for the first time in my life!) a few months ago and I am surprised in how she learns some stuff and how she behaves, reacts to triggers and inputs, etc. Of course, _it is only a dog_, but it is also a living thing with reduced communication skills and still she absorbs and learns a lot, and remembers, etc. Animals are truly amazing.

rurp• 4 years ago

Very cool!

Out on a hike once I came across two coyotes that were playing some elaborate games. They would chase each other around obstacles and after separating would try to ambush or sneak up on the other. It was a blast watching them.

There was also a raven who started flying around in the mix and would land next to one, vocalizing at it. There was no aggression on either side, it honestly looked like the bird was joining the play but I have no idea if that's true.

I did some research and couldn't find anything on ravens and coyotes playing together, but crows/ravens have been known to hunt with coyotes and wolves.

eshack94• 4 years ago

I wonder what it's like to be an octopus. What kind of thoughts do they think? How do they perceive the world?

dredmorbius2• 4 years ago

One the one hand, there are eight hands to consider...

somecommit• 4 years ago

Interesting open-space dynamic

backtoyoujim• 4 years ago

That reminds me of that video of Hunter S. Thompson shooting at his neighbor with a lugar.

somishere• 4 years ago

Was snorkeling with my 4yo in July and came across a decent sized octopus curled up under a small bit of coral substrate on the reef flat, in about 40cm of water. Wasn't able to id it properly, but we sat there for 15 minutes watching each other. Longest the kid has ever sat still in one spot. Cephalopods are without doubt the coolest fish in the sea.

cubano• 4 years ago

“It’s communication, in a way.”

Yes..."get the fuck away from me douchebag" has always been understood as an effective way to communicate.

jamesdtyler• 4 years ago

My wife loves These guys! Has a massive half-sleeve tat on her shoulder. my favorite exhibit of the Georgia Aquarium was the octopus. He came out and waved to us. pretty cool.

deafpolygon2• 4 years ago

Or maybe, they are actually quite intelligent. Just because they're not bipedal, land dwelling mammals doesn't mean they don't hold some intelligence of their own kind.

crobertsbmw• 4 years ago

I think they are already regarded as one of the most intelligent creatures we know about.

deafpolygon2• 4 years ago

Yes, but that's like regarding your child as special in their own way. I think there's way more than that.

bigbacaloa• 4 years ago

They taste good also.

Octopuses caught on camera throwing things at each other

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