[LINK] On tool-using octopi

[rfmcdonald]

Thanks to james_nicoll for letting us all know this historic news.

A team led by biologist Julian Finn of Museum Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, was observing 20 veined octopuses (Amphioctopus marginatus) on a regular basis.

The researchers noticed that the animals were frequently using their approximately 6-inch-long (15-centimeter-long) tentacles to carry coconut shells bigger than their roughly 3-inch-wide (8-centimeter-wide) bodies.

An octopus would dig up the two halves of a coconut shell, then use them as protective shielding when stopping in exposed areas or when resting in sediment.

This, on its own, astonished the team. Then they noticed that the octopuses, after using the coconut shells, would arrange them neatly below the centers of their bodies and "walk" around with the shells—awkwardly.

"I've always been impressed by what octopuses can do, but this was bizarre," said study co-author Norman, senior curator for mollusks at Museum Victoria.

To carry the shells, a veined octopus has to stick its arms out and over the edges of the coconut and walk around as if on stilts—making the octopus, while in motion, more vulnerable to predators—study leader Finn explained.

"An octopus without shells can swim away much faster by jet propulsion," he said. "But on endless mud seafloor, where are you fleeing to?" In other words, a coconut-carrying octopus may be slow, but it's always got somewhere to hide.

[. . .]

"I really wasn't expecting to see tool use appear in cephalopods"—squid, cuttlefish, and octopuses—said biological anthropologist Craig Stanford, co-director of the Jane Goodall Research Center in Los Angeles, who wasn't involved in the new study.

That the octopuses weren't using their tools to rustle up dinner only added to Stanford's surprise. "Even chimps," he added, "do not use natural materials to create shelters over their heads."