appropriately-inappropriate:

emilygoddess:

attackofopportunity:

aligayforpayliebert:

sarahsellaphix:

officialgarrusvakarian:

we-are-star-stuff:

zerostatereflex:

An Octopus unscrewing a lid from the inside.

Octopuses are going to kill us all someday

I had a biology teacher that told us this story about an octopus at an aquarium in Australia. The staff were concerned because their population of crustaceans kept disappearing. No bodies or anything. So they checked the video feed to find out what’s up.

Across from the the crustacean tank was a small octopus tank. This little fucker squeezed out of a tiny hole at the top of his tank, walk across the hall, and get into the crustacean tank. He would then hunt and eat. After he was done, he crawled back out and get back in his tank

Here’s the kicker: security guards patrolled the area. The staff realized that the octopus had memorized the security’s routine. It would escape and be back between the guards’ round.

My friend who worked at Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska had as similar story.  Rare fish were disappearing, they suspected theft, and so set up a camera. An octopus was unlocking the top of its tank, walking across the suspended walkway, unlocking the other tank, eating his fill, re-locking the other tank, then re-locking its own tank.

Octopuses are terrifying serial killers 

SAME THING HAPPENED AT THE NEW ENGLAND AQUARIUM! THEY HAD TO PUT A PADLOCK ON THE OCTOPUS TANK!

Now I’m wondering if there are really that many octopods doing the same thing, or if this is an urban legend that (like most urban legends)  ”happened” wherever the people sharing it live. Hmm…

I’d actually believe it. Octopi are incredibly intelligent, and certainly analytical thinkers.

Octopus MUST have enrichment activities in their tank or they’ll become so depressed they’ll attempt suicide. Additionally, when you DO give them enrichment activities, they engage in play. They’ll shoot jets of water at items above their tanks to manipulate them, will disassemble them deliberately piece by piece and then try to reassemble them (consciousness of cause and effect), and they appear to have their own personalities—and to like and dislike others based on the same.

They’ve also been shown problem-solving and tool-using (such as using a pointed object to open a clam). They show significant lateral thinking (when the clam is wired shut, they’ll use their cartilaginous beak to chip the shell, or drill a hole and inject toxin in).

They’re scary smart.