As a species, we've always looked up at the skies; it's our clock, it's where we look for answers to existential questions like "where do we go after we die", and it's where most out Gods reside. We've been fascinated by the movements of the Sun and Moon, and even the stars we've grouped neatly together by drawing lines between them to form fantastical pictures of animals and Gods, like in the zodiac signs.
Image by - source:
We're spending billions of dollars to explore what's "out there" and the modern billionaire is has some space-related program, because hey, there's a lot to be exploited out there... This preoccupation with everything "up there" distracts from the fact that we haven't explored everything "down here" yet, not by a long shot. We haven't been able to dive into the depths of our past, as many of our historical feats are yet to be understood, and we haven't explored the depths of our oceans either; 80% of our oceans is unexplored...
One of the most enigmatic and beautiful mysteries down there has to be the octopus. I've written an article about these magnificent creatures a half year ago entitled Eight Legged Brains: please follow the link and read that for a taste of the intelligent behavior of these creatures. They have nine brains; one central and one for each of it's tentacles. Experiments have been done in which they exhibit extremely intelligent behavior, problem solving ability and memory capacity. They also show to have emotions, which they express partially through coloring their magical skin.
The coloring of their skin is mostly used for some amazing camouflage. This aspect of their complex behavior, their extreme skill in mimicking their surroundings by manipulating the pigment of each individual cell, is discussed in the video I'd like to share with you today. The most amazing thing to think about here, is that we share a common ancestor with these creatures as far back as 500 - 600 million years ago. This means that the octopus has developed it's own "brand" of intelligence completely separate from the vertebrate intelligence we're familiar with, the kind found in humans, dolphins, elephants, birds and so on. What's new for me is that these ancient underwater creatures even have something that resembles REM sleep; does this mean they have dreams..? Please watch this TED talk to get a better sense of how amazing these animals really are:
The amazing brains and morphing skin of octopuses and other cephalopods | Roger Hanlon
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