Soft-headed Intellectuals - The Boston Globe - Emily Anthes, Boston Globe
Octopuses “make decisions all the time, complicated decisions,” says Roger Hanlon, a senior scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole. “People don’t expect that from a creature related to an oyster.”
What scientists are discovering about the octopus calls into question many of our assumptions about intelligence. Partly this is because the creatures are so different from the kinds of animals — social vertebrates, especially mammals — that have long been seen as having a monopoly on smarts. Octopuses are members of a class of creatures known as cephalopods, which appeared on the planet even before the first fish, and they are almost as far removed from us primates as another animal can get. And although it has long been theorized that intelligence evolved in social creatures as a way for species that live in groups to navigate the complex social world, the octopus leads a solitary life.
-Emily Anthes, Boston Globe
Investigate the graphics demonstrating various tools of the trade for octopdes and their investigators: Boston Globe Graphics
And then view the now well-known coconut-carrying octopus:
Roger Hanlon's other popular footage of the remarkable camouflage artistry of the octopus:
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