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www.thevillagenews.co.za
23 September 2020
MY ENVIRONMENT
Tentacles of love: My friend, the octopus By Dr Anina Lee
mans) want to eat it. For this reason, an octopus has extraordinary camouflage abilities. It can change colour almost instantaneously and, using muscles in its skin, can change the texture of its body from smooth to lumps and projections to blend in with the surrounding rocks. It can change its movements, from creeping and slithering to ‘walking’ on two or four ‘legs’. Add to that the jet-propelled getaway, leaving behind a trail of black ink.
D
oes an octopus have a personality? Perhaps an odd question to ask, as scientists regard personality as a trait of high intelligence and we have all read and heard stories about how intelligent octopuses are. They can open screw top jars. They can escape from the aquarium they are kept in, travel overland to snatch prey from another aquarium and return to their own homes, looking the picture of innocence. So I was delighted to find two documentaries on octopuses interacting with humans that blew my mind. The Sea Change documentary with Craig Foster, My Octopus Teacher, documents the ‘friendship’ between Craig and an octopus in the Great African Sea Forest off the Cape Peninsula. Every day for a year, Craig visited the octopus in her watery home. After a short while she, in turn, welcomed him by reaching out, inviting physical contact. That is in itself remarkable from an invertebrate cephalopod.
Similar behaviour is recorded in another documentary, the BBC’s The Octopus in my House. Research scientist Prof David Scheel studied an octopus in a large tank in his living room, so that he could observe all its interactions with him and his daughter, Laurel.
PHOTO: Craig Foster
Scheel’s octopus not only recognised faces to distinguish between them but sought their attention. It built up a unique relationship with the young Laurel, trying to hold her hand back when she wanted to end a play session. After the octopus was taught to ring a bell when it wanted attention (and food), it rang the bell day and night. It enjoyed watching television, sitting glued to the side of the tank. Craig Foster documented completely natural behaviours of the octopus in its ocean habitat. Scheel documented the animal’s adaptation to a human-dominated environment. In the natural environment, an octopus’s first priority is avoiding predation – how to survive in a hostile environment where so many things (including hu-
PHOTO: Tom Foster
Interestingly, the octopus in captivity was observed to dream while asleep, changing colour presumably as the dreamscape unfolded. Even while still in the egg, a baby octopus already has the colour-changing ability. The octopus observed by Craig Foster was able to shape itself into a ball and cover itself in shells and pebbles to be invisible to predators. Unfortunately, even this was no match for the acute sense of smell of its main predators – various catshark and shy-shark species.
PHOTO: BBC – Natural World
One of the most remarkable sequences ever filmed is an octopus that lived in an almost barren habitat. It collected two half coconut shells, which it carried along with it. When danger threatened, it retreated into the shell, pulling the two halves neatly together to make an impenetrable hide-away. This behaviour is remarkable, in that the octopus had to have foresight – a mark of high intelligence. It had to foresee that carrying two very awkward objects along with it, will enable him to hide sometime in the future when danger threatens. The eye of an octopus is surprisingly similar to that of other higher animals, including humans – a remarkable parallel evolutionary path. And it uses those eyes to make eye contact with humans, showing a desire to communicate and a high level of awareness. These two documentaries show that a deep connection is possible between humans and octopuses. It’s quite astounding if you consider that octopuses appear to be the closest things to aliens we will ever see on this earth. Yet, humans and octopuses have vastly different evolutionary histories. The last common ancestor in our tree of life is an organism something like a flatworm. In the last half-billion years that we have evolved separately from octopuses, both branches have independently developed very similar eyes. We have also retained the ability to find a connection that transcends 600 million years of divergent evolution. If we can be friends with such an ‘alien-looking’ octopus, how much easier should it be to relate to other humans? Watch these documentaries: My Octopus Teacher: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB8YYS6PytE The Octopus in my House: www.dailymotion.com/video/x7ie2h4
PHOTO: BBC – Natural World TOP: The Netflix documentary, My Octopus Teacher, produced by the local NPO, Sea Change Project, documents the ‘friendship’ between Craig Foster and an octopus in the Great African Sea Forest off the Cape Peninsula. MIDDLE: Similar behaviour is recorded in another documentary, the BBC’s The Octopus in my House. Research scientist Prof David Scheel studied an octopus named Heidi in a large tank in his living room, and recorded the unique relationship that developed between him, Heidi and his young daughter, Laurel. ABOVE: Heidi was able to unravel puzzles, recognise individual humans and even watched TV with the family. CIRCLE: The eye of an octopus is surprisingly similar to that of other higher animals, including humans, and it uses those eyes to make eye contact with humans, showing a desire to communicate and a high level of awareness.
