15 ms·
Octopuses caught on camera throwing things at each other
- barbazoo 4y agoI'm reading Children of Ruin, that's how it starts.
- FredPret 4y agoI 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 4y agoMy 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.
- svachalek 4y agoThere's official canon for it, summarized here (spoilers) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chase_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chase_(Star_Trek:_The_Next...
- three_seagrass 4y agoIIRC the sentient species in our galaxy were all seeded by the same ancient alien race, hence the structural similarities.
- citrusynapse 4y agoSteven 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_seagrass 4y agoChildren of Time: Cute spider pop-up book Children of Ruin: Parasitic space horror
- Barrin92 4y agoAlso very relevant and literally just published a few weeks ago (and a very good read): https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374605957/themountaininthesea https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374605957/themountaininth...
- tarentel 4y agoThe third and final? book, Children of Memory, is coming out next year.
- yitchelle 4y agoFor 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 4y agoLike those wiz-kids on the arcade basketball machines?
- excalibur 4y agoNo you're onto something, "throw" seems like it might not be the most appropriate verb here. This is more akin to blowing or spitting.
- euroderf 4y agoI would LOVE to see the octopus version of Road Runner cartoons. The part of Wile E Coyote would have to be recast.
- bitwize 4y agoOh, yeah, man, that riveting nature documentary -- Squiddly Diddly.
- 4gotunameagain 4y agoMay 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.
- bananarchist 4y agoNo, the plural is octopodes, just like cactus->cactodes, virus->virodes and surplus-surplodes (my favorite)
- mc32 4y agoI always thought it was virus and virus given its root.
- adrian_b 4y agoAll the attested uses of the word virus in Latin are only in the singular number. Nevertheless, the correct plural would have been "virora", like tempus => tempora (time => times) or corpus => corpora (body => bodies), or perhaps "virera", like pondus => pondera (weight => weights) or genus => genera (kind => kinds), depending on the original quality of the final vowel in the stem. (Originally it would have been visos => visosa, but the final vowel in virus has become closed, while the intervocalic s has become r due to rhotacism.) You have been thinking at the masculine words whose stem ends in -u, like fructu (fruit), where the singular is fructus and the plural is fructuus. There -s is not part of the stem but it is a marker of the singular masculine nominative case. In virus and the other neuter nouns that end in -s, the -s is a part of the stem of the word, not a case marker. There are also masculine word where the stem ends in -s, like muus (mouse), in which the -s must also not be confused with the marker of the nominative case that is applied to some of the words with other kinds of stems.
- 4y ago
- DizzyDoo 4y agoAs 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-octopus-throwing-behavior-silt-shells/672059/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/11/gloomy-o...
- addaon 4y agoThey really like being anthropomorphized.
- curious_cat_163 4y agoMaybe they are just confused about the whole thing, you know. :)
- ghostbrainalpha 4y agoThank you for this. Perfect joke.
- inopinatus 4y agoThere 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 4y agoIt's as much as the article says: > “We weren’t able to try and assess what the reasons might be,”
- schkolne 4y agotx 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,”
- tshaddox 4y agoHave been caught throwing things at each other. Like it’s illegal! https://youtu.be/sivmld0X8eE https://youtu.be/sivmld0X8eE
- Jun8 4y agoWhen 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 4y agoThe shells throwing example wasn't as convincing as the silt throwing example.
- test1235 4y 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 4y agoit'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.
- colechristensen 4y agoOctopus species just don’t live long enough to develop much intelligence or culture. Most of them only live a year and die after reproducing.
- intrasight 4y agoSome live to five years. Long enough to get clever.
- stevenwoo 4y agoSince 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 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-00612-y
- intrasight 4y agoIt'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?
- dolphinboiiii 4y ago
- UncleOxidant 4y agoSocial networking in a clam shell.
- hinata08 4y agoOr reality TV Futurama was right, about the future of TV being in hypnotic frogs and the like.
- iAm25626 4y agoChildren of Ruin – Adrian Tchaikovsky interesting read on cephalopods in a sci-fi/evolution context
- lzooz 4y agoRelated: https://www.spainfoodsherpas.com/pulpo-a-la-gallega-recipe-the-genuine-galician-style-octopus-recipe/ https://www.spainfoodsherpas.com/pulpo-a-la-gallega-recipe-t...
- pvaldes 4y agoFetch, little Octavius, Fetch!
- chrisfinazzo 4y ago"What's that they're flinging at us!?" "Oh, dear Lord, all over the Dean!"
- gaudat 4y agoSplatoon 4 is looking good huh
- smileybarry 4y agoReminds 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePH6Ky0YWZA
- sominash 4y agoApparently 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 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3O4sYndUdsI
- lolc 4y 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.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bell-cot 4y agoAh, if only Gary Larson was still writing The Far Side comics...
- stevenwoo 4y agoHe started limited production on web comics. https://www.thefarside.com/new-stuff https://www.thefarside.com/new-stuff
- FrameworkFred 4y ago"I'm glad there was no internet to record MY behavior when I was growing up!" --an old octopus, 11/10/2022
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- z9znz 4y 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.
- stevenwoo 4y agoEvery 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 4y agoReally 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 4y agoI 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 4y agoVery 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.
- Makobado1 4y ago
- eshack94 4y agoI wonder what it's like to be an octopus. What kind of thoughts do they think? How do they perceive the world?
- dredmorbius 4y agoOne the one hand, there are eight hands to consider...
- somecommit 4y agoInteresting open-space dynamic
- backtoyoujim 4y agoThat reminds me of that video of Hunter S. Thompson shooting at his neighbor with a lugar.
- somishere 4y agoWas 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 4y 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 4y agoMy 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.
- deafpolygon 4y agoOr 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 4y agoI think they are already regarded as one of the most intelligent creatures we know about.
- deafpolygon 4y agoYes, but that's like regarding your child as special in their own way. I think there's way more than that.
- bigbacaloa 4y agoThey taste good also.