37 ms·

Inky the octopus breaks out of New Zealand aquarium

danparsonson 10y ago
> “He managed to make his way to one of the drain holes that go back to the ocean, and off he went,” Mr. Yarrall said. “Didn’t even leave us a message.” Yes he did - the message was 'I don't want to live in a glass box'
kobayashi 10y ago
>Inky is not the first octopus to attract the spotlight. In the summer of 2010, Paul, an octopus in Germany, gained worldwide attention when he appeared to correctly pick the winning team in all seven of Germany’s games at the World Cup in South Africa — a feat that inspired a song. He has been immortalized in Oberhausen, Germany, with a six-foot plastic replica of him clutching a soccer ball. To me, this cheapens the article. There are readers who are going to think that the octopus actually predicted those wins, when any thoughtfully rational observer would understand that it was merely a lucky happenstance.
- sarreph 10y ago
  Yeah that was totally unnecessary in an article otherwise promoting the lesser-known intelligence of octopi.
- davidw 10y ago
  Yeah, your basic octopus scam where you get a bunch of octupi and have them predict results from sports games, and advertise the results of the one that has managed to "predict" the most results.
  - Tomte 10y ago
    Nope, it and only it was seriously followed by tabloids and reputable newspapers alike at least from the second match on. Sure, it was chance. But not a "pick a winner in hindsight" scam.
- scottru 10y ago
  Gimlet Media did a really fun story talking about Paul in the context of superpredictors. https://gimletmedia.com/episode/58-earth-pony/ https://gimletmedia.com/episode/58-earth-pony/
bnjmn 10y ago
In 2016, Inky Dufresne escaped from Shawtank Prison. All they found of him was a muddy set of prison clothes, a bar of soap, and an old rock hammer, damn near worn down to the nub.
DanBC 10y ago
The linked video is amazing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yHIsQhVxGM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yHIsQhVxGM And here's a "tool using" octopus - carring a coconut shell to hide in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DoWdHOtlrk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DoWdHOtlrk
sarreph 10y ago
It upsets me to no end that we find evidence such as this piece that cephalopods are actually (relatively speaking) remarkably more intelligent than common wisdom pertains[0], and yet the culinary abuse and harm (i.e. 'live sushi/sashimi') of these creatures continues. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod_intelligence
- adamnemecek 10y ago
  I agree, it's disgusting but this goes for most animals though.
- Aelinsaar 10y ago
  This won't be seriously entertained by most people until their standard of living is better than the octopus. Hungry people don't have the time or energy to worry about how smart their meal is. Only religion ever seems to make a dent in dietary habits in the 3rd world.
  - chc 10y ago
    Japan is not the third world.
  - ralmidani 10y ago
    How does hunger necessitate eating live animals? And isn't octopus relatively expensive, anyways?
    - Aelinsaar 10y ago
      I'm not talking specifically about eating them while alive, which is a relatively rare practice anyway. Their torment as by-catch and just in general seems more ubiquitous to me. Eating them alive is gruesome, but frankly a lot closer to what an octopus can expect in nature. Being put in solitary in a tiny box though? Being held in a tank in terrible conditions, and then brutally dispatched? That's all too common.
  - pera 10y ago
danans 10y ago
I wonder if Inky knew that the drain hole led to the ocean, or if it was a just a lucky break.
- tracyshaun 10y ago
  Do octopi have a sense of smell? Maybe it/he/she could sense it in some way, or just noticed that when water flowed in the room, it all went down that drain. "I'll go where the water goes!" In that vein, how often do octopi get out of the water (except when being brought out by humans)? And, are they aware of "water" vs "not-water"? I already lmgtfy.com'ed all of these... just adding to the discussion.
  - LeifCarrotson 10y ago
    Scents do not travel back up a drain pipe, and I doubt that sounds or other effects do, either. And while a lost human might reason about following a river to civilization, I don't think there are similar drains in the ocean. If it made that connection, I am seriously impressed! While that's a well known tactic for explorers, many lost humans don't know it and don't figure it out! My leading guess, though, is that he observed workers pouring other ocean things, probably including some tasty octopus food, down the drain.
    - theandrewbailey 10y ago
      > Scents do not travel back up a drain pipe, and I doubt that sounds or other effects do, either. Properly engineered drains are, especially if they have traps. You must hang around different drains than I.
- mentalpiracy 10y ago
  Good question. Not sure if there's an answer. This wouldn't be a story for us to read if he'd simply been recaptured.
- kevinmchugh 10y ago
  It was a dark, tight space, which octopuses enjoy. He may have entered it simply because it seemed more comfortable than where he was.
the_rosentotter 10y ago
A similar interesting octopus story not mentioned in the article: A particular light in a German aquarium kept short-circuiting and no one could figure out why. Using camera surveillance it was finally discovered that every night, the octopus would climb to the edge of his tank and shoot a jet of water on the light, shorting it. It was speculated that the light had been bothering the octopus' nocturnal routine. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3328480/Otto-the-octopus-wrecks-havoc.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3328...
- nier 10y ago
  Their answer was to hang the light higher. No explanation for keeping the nightly illumination.
  - developer2 10y ago
    That article is depressing. They nonchalantly attribute the behaviour to boredom and belittling the creature like a child: "Otto is constantly craving for attention and always comes up with new stunts so we have realised we will have to keep more careful eye on him". Let's not attribute any aspect of his behaviour to the crippling reality of captivity. Oh, no.
    - gd1 10y ago
      There is no more evidence for your theory than theirs. Neither can be proven. So "let's not attribute any aspect of his behaviour" to anything is the only correct response.
      - Joof 10y ago
        > It was speculated that the light was disrupting its nocturnal routine. That seems to support the previous posters theory.
        gd1 10y ago
andrewclunn 10y ago
Great article until they conflated stupid human sports superstition with cephalopod intelligence.
mrfusion 10y ago
Amazing. Most humans couldnt come up with an escape plan like this. It's possible he exhibiting long term goal oriented planning here. Have we considered octopi might actually be more intelligent than humans? Wouldn't it be funny if in the future we figured out how to communicate with them and they ended up solving our hardest problems or making breakthroughs in physics and math?
- TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
  Octopi aren't more intelligent than humans, because intelligence in humans is partly external. We're fairly dumb as feral individuals, but give us a herd memory for science and math and we can fly to the moon. Octopi not only don't live very long, they're also aggressively solitary. So they have the usual smart-animal problem of starting life as a blank slate with a few baked-in instincts and no way to learn from previous generations. The blank slate cycle has been repeating for millions of years, so they're unlikely to change now. If they did, we'd be in trouble.
  - mrfusion 10y ago
    What if we shared all of our knowledge with them to fix the blank slate problem? But you're right. A single human with no knowledge is not very intelligent. It's disconcerting if you think about it.
    - Splines 10y ago
      Sometimes I feel we are precariously positioned at the tip of human achievement. I think we're lucky that the earth is abundant in resources to make up for our mistakes.
  - oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
    But what if they CAN fly to the moon but have decided not to because they realise it's a very big mistake ...
    - 10y ago
kevinmchugh 10y ago
I'm currently reading The Soul of an Octopus and it's really joy inspiring. Part pop-science, part memoir, part inter-species romance. If you just come in for science you'll be annoyed by Clever Hans effect and confirmation bias, but that's all pop science writing on animal intelligence. http://amazon.com/The-Soul-Octopus-Exploration-Consciousness/dp/1451697716?sa-no-redirect=1 http://amazon.com/The-Soul-Octopus-Exploration-Consciousness...
- Eric_WVGG 10y ago
  if anyone’s interested in a science fiction take, Steven Baxter’s “Manifold: Time” has a subplot involving intelligence-enhanced cephalopods. It’s one of my favorite hard sci-fi reads…
  - cmrx64 10y ago
    Thanks for the recommendation, that looks really interesting. I'm always on the look out for interesting hard(er) scifi.
bpchaps 10y ago
Offtopic (sorry) - why is it that I can't read this short article in full in one screen on a 4k monitor? And why is it that when I move my mouse around, I get about 10 different places where a mini dialogue pops up? Somebody needs to make a new internet.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
  The proper agency has been notified, please stand by for wish fulfillment.
  - bpchaps 10y ago
    Dang, last time I worked with one of those agencies, they never got back to me. Still hopeful! ;)
hodwik 10y ago
Just because something has complex self-preservation behaviors does not mean that thing is displaying consciousness. Complex behaviors are witnessed in insects and microscopic organisms, yet they have nothing like a brain. What's more, we're computer scientists. If anyone should be aware that something can seem intelligent without sentience it should be us. Who here hasn't explored chat bots or game AI mechanics? Yet these inventions are remarkably simple compared with even the most basic of evolution's creations. Are venus fly traps sentient because they catch food in their "mouths"? Of course not. Our knee-jerk reaction to equate behavior with sentience illustrates just how bad we humans are of seeing reality without an anthropomorphic lense. It is far more likely that human beings became unusual because of our sentience, not that animals remain base in spite of theirs.
- Houshalter 10y ago
  There's no evidence yet that humans are sentient either. It's all wild speculation. Many complex behaviors observed in humans have been reproduced with very simple algorithms.
  - hodwik 10y ago
    The simple difference being that we are humans, and can easily extrapolate to the rest of our species from ourselves. As for other animals, I'm not so convinced that the same extrapolation stands.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
pier25 10y ago
Octodad anyone?
joshuamcneese 10y ago
it's behavior like this that caused me to no longer be able to eat octopus, which was one of my favorite foods. but after learning that they are capable of planning and puzzle-solving... i felt guilty after every trip to the sushi place.
dpcan 10y ago
Kind-of off topic I guess, but we were just visiting an aquarium in Seaside OR a couple weeks ago, and they famously have an octopus in the tank, with no top on it that you can stand next to and watch it swim around. While we were there, it was dancing for us, speeding across the tank like I'd never seen. He really looked like he'd love to be free. So the question had to be asked, "What if he wants to get out?" The aquarium attendant told us something in the vein of, if he gets out, he gets out. If he wants to be free, he will get free. I thought that was an interesting answer, though I'm still not sure how I feel about it. I can tell you that if it tried to get free while I was there, I'd probably get the heck out of the aquarium. It resembled an alien, and I'm afraid of most giant things from the sea.
ianphughes 10y ago
Not to sound too negative, but I kind of feel like the timing of this story is suspect. It seems to be on the heels of numerous articles [1][2][3] from Pixar talking about their new character, which is an octopus, escaping and rescuing Dory the fish. FWIW, I am a huge fan of cephalopods and have a large octopus tattoo enshrining my admiration for the animal. They certainly are highly intelligent, so the story isn't impossible. [1] http://zap2it.com/2016/04/finding-dory-director-hank-septopus-sneak-peek/ http://zap2it.com/2016/04/finding-dory-director-hank-septopu... [2] http://www.awn.com/animationworld/ultimate-sidekick-finally-discovers-herself-pixar-s-finding-dory http://www.awn.com/animationworld/ultimate-sidekick-finally-... [3] http://article.wn.com/view/2016/04/07/8216finding_dory_8217s_8217_hank_is_the_8216hardest_characte/ http://article.wn.com/view/2016/04/07/8216finding_dory_8217s...
- yolesaber 10y ago
  But the story doesn't even mention Pixar or Finding Dory? Is this some sort of new ultra low-frequency subliminal advertising? Or are you just being a little paranoid? You're the one who brought it up, maybe you're the one working for Pixar.
  - ianphughes 10y ago
    Well, I could be for sure. The new Pixar has a story has a central character that is an escape artists octopus. Certainly could be coincidental.
bitwize 10y ago
The bit with the jailbreaking octopus from Finding Dory comes to mind.
SpaceX_Tech 10y ago
A number of years ago I kept two octopuses in captivity and I always enjoy reading articles like this, I wish more people took an interest in them and I’m glad to see the audience at HN does. They really are remarkable animals and unbelievably inquisitive. Trying to keep them from escaping, even from a relatively small 250 gallon tank was always a challenge and I can only imagine how difficult it is to retrofit the larger tanks they inhabit at public aquariums to be escape proof. They two I kept were incredibly tactile in their curiosity and loved exploring my arms/hands whenever I put them into their tank. They would readily eat small crabs and shrimp right from my fingers and seemed to like playing tug of war, clinging to my hand with a few tentacles and them some of the heavier rocks with the others. Lego blocks, clear acrylic piping, small plastic toys would keep them busy for hours on end. Many people don’t realize this but they are unfortunately (or fortunately for humans) remarkably short lived. Most species live only for 1-1.5 years and even the Giant Pacific Octopus usually only lives for 3-5 years. I would always jokingly remark to friends that if they had a longer life span on the order of a decade or more, they probably would have invented some kind of breathing apparatus and conquered land long ago. They would probably have a much more advanced space program by now as well.
- cat-dev-null 10y ago
  It's a rational conjecture that hunters tend to strive to continue winning the intelligence arms race over prey, and that technology tends (but not always) is an emergent property from this set of species.
  - fghrthtb 10y ago
    It's also possibly to do with their lack of shell. While other molluscs have a shell to protect them Cephalopod do not, perhaps this forced the evolution of a more capable brain.
    - roganp 10y ago
      This. The cuttlefish (a relative) changes the color of it's skin and texture to hide from hunters/prey. If you have not seen this video, prepare to be amazed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmDTtkZlMwM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmDTtkZlMwM Also, the cuttlefish: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/camo/anat-nf.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/camo/anat-nf.html
Joof 10y ago
Supposedly octopuses have a my h more distributed neural system. Most of their neurons are in their tentacles (we also have neurons in our body, but mostly the brain). I'd love to see an fMRI.
peter303 10y ago
I am looking for a big enough crack in my cubicle wall to escape too!
richardthered 10y ago
Why is this news story everywhere?! Hacker News, Google News, newspapers, facebook feeds, ... it's like it's following me everywhere I go! Is there some secret octopus cabal out there that's advancing the secret octopus news agenda?
- koube 10y ago
  I'm noticing a lot of Reddit posts showing up here that don't seem all too related to tech. Perhaps Hacker News is just growing to that size where it starts to get off topic sometimes.

> “He managed to make his way to one of the drain holes that go back to the ocean, and off he went,” Mr. Yarrall said. “Didn’t even leave us a message.” Yes he did - the message was 'I don't want to live in a glass box'

kobayashi 10y ago

>Inky is not the first octopus to attract the spotlight. In the summer of 2010, Paul, an octopus in Germany, gained worldwide attention when he appeared to correctly pick the winning team in all seven of Germany’s games at the World Cup in South Africa — a feat that inspired a song. He has been immortalized in Oberhausen, Germany, with a six-foot plastic replica of him clutching a soccer ball. To me, this cheapens the article. There are readers who are going to think that the octopus actually predicted those wins, when any thoughtfully rational observer would understand that it was merely a lucky happenstance.

sarreph 10y ago
Yeah that was totally unnecessary in an article otherwise promoting the lesser-known intelligence of octopi.
davidw 10y ago
Yeah, your basic octopus scam where you get a bunch of octupi and have them predict results from sports games, and advertise the results of the one that has managed to "predict" the most results.
- Tomte 10y ago
  Nope, it and only it was seriously followed by tabloids and reputable newspapers alike at least from the second match on. Sure, it was chance. But not a "pick a winner in hindsight" scam.
scottru 10y ago
Gimlet Media did a really fun story talking about Paul in the context of superpredictors. https://gimletmedia.com/episode/58-earth-pony/ https://gimletmedia.com/episode/58-earth-pony/

bnjmn 10y ago

In 2016, Inky Dufresne escaped from Shawtank Prison. All they found of him was a muddy set of prison clothes, a bar of soap, and an old rock hammer, damn near worn down to the nub.

DanBC 10y ago

The linked video is amazing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yHIsQhVxGM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yHIsQhVxGM And here's a "tool using" octopus - carring a coconut shell to hide in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DoWdHOtlrk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DoWdHOtlrk

sarreph 10y ago

It upsets me to no end that we find evidence such as this piece that cephalopods are actually (relatively speaking) remarkably more intelligent than common wisdom pertains[0], and yet the culinary abuse and harm (i.e. 'live sushi/sashimi') of these creatures continues. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod_intelligence

adamnemecek 10y ago
I agree, it's disgusting but this goes for most animals though.
Aelinsaar 10y ago
This won't be seriously entertained by most people until their standard of living is better than the octopus. Hungry people don't have the time or energy to worry about how smart their meal is. Only religion ever seems to make a dent in dietary habits in the 3rd world.
- chc 10y ago
  Japan is not the third world.
- ralmidani 10y ago
  How does hunger necessitate eating live animals? And isn't octopus relatively expensive, anyways?
  - Aelinsaar 10y ago
    I'm not talking specifically about eating them while alive, which is a relatively rare practice anyway. Their torment as by-catch and just in general seems more ubiquitous to me. Eating them alive is gruesome, but frankly a lot closer to what an octopus can expect in nature. Being put in solitary in a tiny box though? Being held in a tank in terrible conditions, and then brutally dispatched? That's all too common.
- pera 10y ago

danans 10y ago

I wonder if Inky knew that the drain hole led to the ocean, or if it was a just a lucky break.

tracyshaun 10y ago
Do octopi have a sense of smell? Maybe it/he/she could sense it in some way, or just noticed that when water flowed in the room, it all went down that drain. "I'll go where the water goes!" In that vein, how often do octopi get out of the water (except when being brought out by humans)? And, are they aware of "water" vs "not-water"? I already lmgtfy.com'ed all of these... just adding to the discussion.
- LeifCarrotson 10y ago
  Scents do not travel back up a drain pipe, and I doubt that sounds or other effects do, either. And while a lost human might reason about following a river to civilization, I don't think there are similar drains in the ocean. If it made that connection, I am seriously impressed! While that's a well known tactic for explorers, many lost humans don't know it and don't figure it out! My leading guess, though, is that he observed workers pouring other ocean things, probably including some tasty octopus food, down the drain.
  - theandrewbailey 10y ago
    > Scents do not travel back up a drain pipe, and I doubt that sounds or other effects do, either. Properly engineered drains are, especially if they have traps. You must hang around different drains than I.
mentalpiracy 10y ago
Good question. Not sure if there's an answer. This wouldn't be a story for us to read if he'd simply been recaptured.
kevinmchugh 10y ago
It was a dark, tight space, which octopuses enjoy. He may have entered it simply because it seemed more comfortable than where he was.

the_rosentotter 10y ago

A similar interesting octopus story not mentioned in the article: A particular light in a German aquarium kept short-circuiting and no one could figure out why. Using camera surveillance it was finally discovered that every night, the octopus would climb to the edge of his tank and shoot a jet of water on the light, shorting it. It was speculated that the light had been bothering the octopus' nocturnal routine. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3328480/Otto-the-octopus-wrecks-havoc.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3328...

nier 10y ago
Their answer was to hang the light higher. No explanation for keeping the nightly illumination.
- developer2 10y ago
  That article is depressing. They nonchalantly attribute the behaviour to boredom and belittling the creature like a child: "Otto is constantly craving for attention and always comes up with new stunts so we have realised we will have to keep more careful eye on him". Let's not attribute any aspect of his behaviour to the crippling reality of captivity. Oh, no.
  - gd1 10y ago
    There is no more evidence for your theory than theirs. Neither can be proven. So "let's not attribute any aspect of his behaviour" to anything is the only correct response.
    - Joof 10y ago
      > It was speculated that the light was disrupting its nocturnal routine. That seems to support the previous posters theory.
      - gd1 10y ago

andrewclunn 10y ago

Great article until they conflated stupid human sports superstition with cephalopod intelligence.

mrfusion 10y ago

Amazing. Most humans couldnt come up with an escape plan like this. It's possible he exhibiting long term goal oriented planning here. Have we considered octopi might actually be more intelligent than humans? Wouldn't it be funny if in the future we figured out how to communicate with them and they ended up solving our hardest problems or making breakthroughs in physics and math?

TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
Octopi aren't more intelligent than humans, because intelligence in humans is partly external. We're fairly dumb as feral individuals, but give us a herd memory for science and math and we can fly to the moon. Octopi not only don't live very long, they're also aggressively solitary. So they have the usual smart-animal problem of starting life as a blank slate with a few baked-in instincts and no way to learn from previous generations. The blank slate cycle has been repeating for millions of years, so they're unlikely to change now. If they did, we'd be in trouble.
- mrfusion 10y ago
  What if we shared all of our knowledge with them to fix the blank slate problem? But you're right. A single human with no knowledge is not very intelligent. It's disconcerting if you think about it.
  - Splines 10y ago
    Sometimes I feel we are precariously positioned at the tip of human achievement. I think we're lucky that the earth is abundant in resources to make up for our mistakes.
- oneeyedpigeon 10y ago
  But what if they CAN fly to the moon but have decided not to because they realise it's a very big mistake ...
  - 10y ago

kevinmchugh 10y ago

I'm currently reading The Soul of an Octopus and it's really joy inspiring. Part pop-science, part memoir, part inter-species romance. If you just come in for science you'll be annoyed by Clever Hans effect and confirmation bias, but that's all pop science writing on animal intelligence. http://amazon.com/The-Soul-Octopus-Exploration-Consciousness/dp/1451697716?sa-no-redirect=1 http://amazon.com/The-Soul-Octopus-Exploration-Consciousness...

Eric_WVGG 10y ago
if anyone’s interested in a science fiction take, Steven Baxter’s “Manifold: Time” has a subplot involving intelligence-enhanced cephalopods. It’s one of my favorite hard sci-fi reads…
- cmrx64 10y ago
  Thanks for the recommendation, that looks really interesting. I'm always on the look out for interesting hard(er) scifi.

bpchaps 10y ago

Offtopic (sorry) - why is it that I can't read this short article in full in one screen on a 4k monitor? And why is it that when I move my mouse around, I get about 10 different places where a mini dialogue pops up? Somebody needs to make a new internet.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
The proper agency has been notified, please stand by for wish fulfillment.
- bpchaps 10y ago
  Dang, last time I worked with one of those agencies, they never got back to me. Still hopeful! ;)

hodwik 10y ago

Just because something has complex self-preservation behaviors does not mean that thing is displaying consciousness. Complex behaviors are witnessed in insects and microscopic organisms, yet they have nothing like a brain. What's more, we're computer scientists. If anyone should be aware that something can seem intelligent without sentience it should be us. Who here hasn't explored chat bots or game AI mechanics? Yet these inventions are remarkably simple compared with even the most basic of evolution's creations. Are venus fly traps sentient because they catch food in their "mouths"? Of course not. Our knee-jerk reaction to equate behavior with sentience illustrates just how bad we humans are of seeing reality without an anthropomorphic lense. It is far more likely that human beings became unusual because of our sentience, not that animals remain base in spite of theirs.

Houshalter 10y ago
There's no evidence yet that humans are sentient either. It's all wild speculation. Many complex behaviors observed in humans have been reproduced with very simple algorithms.
- hodwik 10y ago
  The simple difference being that we are humans, and can easily extrapolate to the rest of our species from ourselves. As for other animals, I'm not so convinced that the same extrapolation stands.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

pier25 10y ago

Octodad anyone?

joshuamcneese 10y ago

it's behavior like this that caused me to no longer be able to eat octopus, which was one of my favorite foods. but after learning that they are capable of planning and puzzle-solving... i felt guilty after every trip to the sushi place.

dpcan 10y ago

Kind-of off topic I guess, but we were just visiting an aquarium in Seaside OR a couple weeks ago, and they famously have an octopus in the tank, with no top on it that you can stand next to and watch it swim around. While we were there, it was dancing for us, speeding across the tank like I'd never seen. He really looked like he'd love to be free. So the question had to be asked, "What if he wants to get out?" The aquarium attendant told us something in the vein of, if he gets out, he gets out. If he wants to be free, he will get free. I thought that was an interesting answer, though I'm still not sure how I feel about it. I can tell you that if it tried to get free while I was there, I'd probably get the heck out of the aquarium. It resembled an alien, and I'm afraid of most giant things from the sea.

ianphughes 10y ago

Not to sound too negative, but I kind of feel like the timing of this story is suspect. It seems to be on the heels of numerous articles [1][2][3] from Pixar talking about their new character, which is an octopus, escaping and rescuing Dory the fish. FWIW, I am a huge fan of cephalopods and have a large octopus tattoo enshrining my admiration for the animal. They certainly are highly intelligent, so the story isn't impossible. [1] http://zap2it.com/2016/04/finding-dory-director-hank-septopus-sneak-peek/ http://zap2it.com/2016/04/finding-dory-director-hank-septopu... [2] http://www.awn.com/animationworld/ultimate-sidekick-finally-discovers-herself-pixar-s-finding-dory http://www.awn.com/animationworld/ultimate-sidekick-finally-... [3] http://article.wn.com/view/2016/04/07/8216finding_dory_8217s_8217_hank_is_the_8216hardest_characte/ http://article.wn.com/view/2016/04/07/8216finding_dory_8217s...

yolesaber 10y ago
But the story doesn't even mention Pixar or Finding Dory? Is this some sort of new ultra low-frequency subliminal advertising? Or are you just being a little paranoid? You're the one who brought it up, maybe you're the one working for Pixar.
- ianphughes 10y ago
  Well, I could be for sure. The new Pixar has a story has a central character that is an escape artists octopus. Certainly could be coincidental.

bitwize 10y ago

The bit with the jailbreaking octopus from Finding Dory comes to mind.

SpaceX_Tech 10y ago

A number of years ago I kept two octopuses in captivity and I always enjoy reading articles like this, I wish more people took an interest in them and I’m glad to see the audience at HN does. They really are remarkable animals and unbelievably inquisitive. Trying to keep them from escaping, even from a relatively small 250 gallon tank was always a challenge and I can only imagine how difficult it is to retrofit the larger tanks they inhabit at public aquariums to be escape proof. They two I kept were incredibly tactile in their curiosity and loved exploring my arms/hands whenever I put them into their tank. They would readily eat small crabs and shrimp right from my fingers and seemed to like playing tug of war, clinging to my hand with a few tentacles and them some of the heavier rocks with the others. Lego blocks, clear acrylic piping, small plastic toys would keep them busy for hours on end. Many people don’t realize this but they are unfortunately (or fortunately for humans) remarkably short lived. Most species live only for 1-1.5 years and even the Giant Pacific Octopus usually only lives for 3-5 years. I would always jokingly remark to friends that if they had a longer life span on the order of a decade or more, they probably would have invented some kind of breathing apparatus and conquered land long ago. They would probably have a much more advanced space program by now as well.

cat-dev-null 10y ago
It's a rational conjecture that hunters tend to strive to continue winning the intelligence arms race over prey, and that technology tends (but not always) is an emergent property from this set of species.
- fghrthtb 10y ago
  It's also possibly to do with their lack of shell. While other molluscs have a shell to protect them Cephalopod do not, perhaps this forced the evolution of a more capable brain.
  - roganp 10y ago
    This. The cuttlefish (a relative) changes the color of it's skin and texture to hide from hunters/prey. If you have not seen this video, prepare to be amazed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmDTtkZlMwM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmDTtkZlMwM Also, the cuttlefish: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/camo/anat-nf.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/camo/anat-nf.html

Joof 10y ago

Supposedly octopuses have a my h more distributed neural system. Most of their neurons are in their tentacles (we also have neurons in our body, but mostly the brain). I'd love to see an fMRI.

peter303 10y ago

I am looking for a big enough crack in my cubicle wall to escape too!

richardthered 10y ago

Why is this news story everywhere?! Hacker News, Google News, newspapers, facebook feeds, ... it's like it's following me everywhere I go! Is there some secret octopus cabal out there that's advancing the secret octopus news agenda?

koube 10y ago
I'm noticing a lot of Reddit posts showing up here that don't seem all too related to tech. Perhaps Hacker News is just growing to that size where it starts to get off topic sometimes.