How Cute! It Thinks It's People!
Marine biologists have discovered two tiny species of octopi that can walk on two legs to impersonate a drifting piece of coconut or algae to catch food.
I'm a huge fan of octopi, not only because they're gross and can change colors, but because they are very intelligent in a way totally alien to humans. You know what would be great? Octopus pets. Communicating with ocotopi. Finding out whether they worship Dread Cthulu or whether that tentacle thing is just a wacky coincidence. I look forward to a day when we can communicate with our eight-legged brothers and we finally unite together as one ten-legged superbeing (hell, let's invite the dogs and dolphins too, why not?) to fight against our mutual enemy: giant fighting space robots. To talk with the octopi, walk with the octopi, fight the robot wars with the octopi. That would be really, really cool.
(You knew I had to bring robots into it somehow.)
Hat tip to boingboing.
[wik] GeekLethal helpfully reminds me of a post I wrote about a year ago on a lonely octopus feeling the eight arms of love for the first time. Also included: sample octo-porn dialogue, also helpfully provided by GeekLethal. Tentacle-porn jokes are you, the reader's alone to invent.
[alsø wik] One word: siphon. Haw!
[alsø alsø wik] I'm so immature.
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I saw a show about octopi
I saw a show about octopi once. Part of it was how researchers measure their intelligence, memory, capacity to learn, and the like.
They put a little fish in a glass (well, trasparent) jar with a screwtop lid, then put that jar into a bigger jar, closed THAT one up, and put it in the center of a maze.
The 'pus knew this particular maze, and remembered where the food was supposed to be. This time though, when he got there it was all jarred up.
It took him about 10 seconds working with his tentacles to figure out how to open it, pull out the smaller one, open that, and have his yummy.
Animals that clever I find threatening, in a vague but very real way. I mean, he figured out jars, people...JARS!
I know we'll need them in the war against the giant robots and all, but I just don't know how far I can trust them.
Will we have to make a big aquarium in the Ministry's Catastratorium to house our squishy allies, or can we count on them to make do in the briny deep until the time is right?
"How Cute! It Thinks It's
"How Cute! It Thinks It's People!"
I've thought that very thought about many coworkers and DC area drivers.
GL, I think the dolphins and
GL, I think the dolphins and the octopi can do just fine in the Briny Deep until the time is nigh.
And do I need to mention that the Atlantis Branch Office will reactivate anyway if a robot-sized threat actually becomes an imminent menace? The Atlanteans (at last communication, at least) had contingency plans in place for absorbing cephalopod and marine mammal populations into their defensive structure and society. I realize much can change in five thousand years, but the Atlanteans are a hardy race and thorough to a fault.
Along with the Babylon Branch Office (officially defunct), the Outer Darkness Branch Office (officially eaten) and the Cibola Branch Office (officially never existed), Atlantis are linchpins of the Ministry's plans.
Don't worry, GL. There's much you as yet have to learn.