Comments

  3. Simon Scott says

    Is youtube really, really slow for anyone else?

    For the last week or so youtube has really crawled for me – but everything else seems ok???

  5. MH says

    Meh, I was expecting it to change into a horse or a T-Rex or a Crocoduck or something.

    Seriously, though, very impressive. I take it an individual raised in captivity wouldn’t be able to imitate anything? I wonder what the extent of its mimicry would be? Are there any examples of Indonesian Mimetic Octopuses being raised in aquaria? (i.e. in the company of an extremely diverse range of species).

  6. G. Tingey says

    Brilliant – downloaded THAT one.

    MH has raised a question, though perhaps without realising it.

    Is the mimicry LEARNT or INHERITED, or a mixture of the two.
    Does anyone know?

  7. Wayne Robinson says

    I’d imagine its mimicry would be hardwired into its brain. There wouldn’t be much time for it to learn its mimicry the first time it really needed it. I just hope Kent Hovind’s dumber son doesn’t discover this video.

  8. Geoff Rogers says

    I have to admit, I love cephalopods. They’re amazingly cool, and they tend to taste yummy.

    You know those guys who are working on the invisibility cloak? Well, screw that – they need to work out how to insert the appropriate octopus genes into humans.

  9. Jason Dick says

    G. Tingey,

    I’m wondering about that too. Obviously, as Wayne Robinson mentions, learned mimicry is simply not going to be possible if it’s learned on th fly. It can only work if there’s some nurturing by the parents of the octopus. But I don’t think that’s the case with octopi. Anybody know for sure whether or not this octopus nurtures its young?

  14. says

    This octopus was obviously designed by a higher intelligence. All these transformer functions could not have appeared by accident, the probabilities are like 1 in a gazillion.

  15. says

    Don’t be too sure it doesn’t learn. It may have several choices but mimic only, or mainly, things it’s seen. Didn’t we just read about squids that preferred shrimp if they were exposed to shrimp passing by their eggs? Or fish being more cautious if a pike drifted past their eggs?

    I’m suffering from that well-known brain phenomenon of filing the fact and throwing away memory of where I learned it.

  17. Matt says

    I really wonder what these guys would look like after a couple million more years of evolution? I mean it is well known they they are at least as smart as dogs, why couldn’t they evolve into a much higher intelligence. Another thing to ponder is, if they did do that, would the architecture of their brain by like our own? Would they evolve a linux based brain while ours is running Windows 98?

  18. VegeBrain says

    I can’t figure out why PC Meyers keeps posting these pictures and videos of televangelists.

  19. Jay says

    I thought for a second that you wrote *memetic* octopus, and was worried that it was spreading a religion or something.

  20. Brad D says

    Very cool! I was for some reason expecting a joke though… perhaps the octopus morphing into Sarah Palin?

  21. sublunary says

    Monado @ 15, I think I know at least one of the things you were referring to. Cuttlefish (who have clear eggs) who were exposed to crabs before hatching prefered crabs over other prey. Article here. I think the embryotic cuttlefish is adorable.

    I wish videos weren’t blocked by my work computer. I remember seeing a few still photos of this species of octopus’s mimicry and really want to see better footage.

  22. Sengkelat says

    Nice octopus.
    I wish when they were comparing the octopus to the animal it was imitating they’d show more of the octopus than of the other animal. Do we really need to see that much flounder to know what it looks like?

    Anyway, always happy to see octopodes on film.

  23. Sili says

    when the octopus was attacked by territorial damselfishes

    I’m sorry, but I can’t take any creature that’s afraid of damselfish seriously.

  25. RoaldFalcon says

    I must find out what that clip was from so I can buy it.

    I think it was having pity on the damselfish. A while back, there was a post with video of an octapus attacking a shark! It grabbed the shark, and ripped it’s friggin’ lasers right off!

  27. Nerdette says

    “I’m sorry, but I can’t take any creature that’s afraid of damselfish seriously.”

    The exact same thing crossed my mind. When the narrator said “ward off an aggressive damselfish” in the same tone of voice as he would describe a lion preying on a gazelle, I laughed aloud.

    This critter says a lot about how other species identify predators/venomous species. To me, that looked nothing like a flounder or a lionfish, but the mimic was satisfactory enough to fool the octopus’ predators.

  29. Mr Doubt(hell)fire says

    I wonder what environmental factors caused this octopus to develop the traits it did. Why does it go to such elaborate lengths to trick prey? I thought that an ink spray was one of the most effective mechanisms concocted for escaping a predator.

    Adding God to the equation just reduces the absolute beauty and intelligence this creature displays. And, unlike the Holy Books, this creature has managed to cover ALL of its vulnerabilities.

    Does anyone have a video where the predator outsmarts the mimic octopus?

  32. Peter Ashby says

    MrDoubt(hell)fire the answer was in the video. The octopus lives in an environment where there is only a sandy/muddy bottom. Unlike other octopuses that live in rocky environments with lots of hiding places and lots of things to camouflage against. Those strategies are not available in its environment so it uses mimetic trickery instead. Hiding in plain sight. Doesn’t work on us but not every animal has human levels of pattern recognition. Ours is so good it is prone to false positives, like Madonnas on toast or wet walls or ghosts.

  33. Noether says

    That is, without a doubt, the most awesome video of an octopus I have ever seen. (Granted, I haven’t seen many, but still.)