WEBVTT - Animals Throwing Stuff, Part 1 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:05.280 My Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of 0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:14.440 My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:18.240 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:00:18.400 --> 0:00:21.479 And today we're going to be kicking off a series 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:27.160 of episodes about examples of throwing in non human animals. 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:30.000 We may also talk about the evolution of throwing in 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:34.680 humans as well, But this is a subject I recently 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:39.400 became interested in, specifically because of a paper that was 0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:44.120 published in November. Some of you might have seen science 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:46.720 headlines going around about this. There was a publication in 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:52.239 the journal Plus one about octopuses throwing objects, or at 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:55.800 least potentially throwing objects. The whether or not it should 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:57.960 count as debatable, and we'll talk about some of the 0:00:58.040 --> 0:01:02.560 arguments for for and against um. But octopuses at least 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:08.920 allegedly throwing objects potentially deliberately and potentially deliberately aiming those 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:13.399 objects at other octopuses. Uh. Though, of course, the exact 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:17.320 nature of their motivations is is somewhat mysterious. It's hard 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:21.199 to to suss out exactly. And I thought it would 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:23.840 be good to to start off our series by looking 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:26.959 at this example that first got me interested in this 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:29.720 um and then maybe we can branch out to other 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:34.720 examples of throwing in the animal world in subsequent episodes. Interesting, 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:38.280 I just assumed that your interest in this topic was 0:01:38.319 --> 0:01:40.880 because you had become a father and you were already 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:45.000 feeling the poll You already were longing to throw ball 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:48.560 with your child, which which is something that that I 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:51.240 felt when when I became a father, I was like, well, 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:52.760 I've I've got to get a ball, right, I've got 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:54.800 to get a mit. I have no other connection to 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:58.240 baseball at all, or softball or any of these sports, 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:00.360 no attachment to them. I don't play of them or 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:04.160 watched them. But there's something about throwing that that must 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:07.240 be done with the child. I do like throwing a ball. 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:09.480 I think I'm more into like a tennis ball in 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:12.760 the hand than a baseball. But um but that's a 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:16.120 dog thing, that's for dogs. I guess that's true. Also, 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:19.560 Um No, I'm not talking about with like the scoop. 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:23.200 I mean the roller ball scoop. I mean tennis ball 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:26.280 straight in the hand. Okay, all right, but no, that's 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:28.720 not the reason. And if I were to go with 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:33.280 the the the motor activities, I've been thinking of more 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:36.760 since becoming a father would be the act of knocking 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:39.560 things over after they've been set up. I think that's 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:43.560 an interesting impulse that we could study. Oh yes, definitely. 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:48.000 But onto the octopus study. So this paper was by 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:53.079 Peter Godfrey Smith, David Sheiel, Stephanie Chancellor, Stefan Linquist, and 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:55.960 Matthew Lawrence, and it was called in the line of 0:02:56.000 --> 0:03:00.480 Fire Debris Throwing by wild Octopus is published published in 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:05.080 Plus one. And so first I'm going to talk about 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:08.160 what the author's report and argue in this paper here, 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:10.799 and then we'll talk about some context as well as 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:16.240 some criticism or or differences in interpretation. Now, for for 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:19.480 background on this subject, I think we can safely say 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:23.880 that not a lot of animals throw things at all. 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:28.720 Throwing is a relatively unique behavior, and the authors of 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:31.359 this study say, quote, a throw can be distinguished from 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:35.320 other phenomenon by the ballistic motion of a manipulable object 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:40.920 or material, where ballistic describes free motion and momentum. So 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:43.640 when I think of throwing, I think of taking a 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:48.800 free external object or material, so not part of your 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:53.480 own body, and projecting it through the environment toward a target. 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:58.160 Throwing is so unique that it has sometimes been characterized 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:00.800 as exclusively the domain of humans. But there are a 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:03.960 number of animal behaviors that I think should count as throwing. 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:07.920 We'll talk about them throughout the series. Uh, some very 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:10.760 clear examples that I don't think anybody would really dispute, 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:16.000 like the throwing behaviors of primates like chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys, 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:18.920 right right, Yeah, there are plenty of examples of this 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:22.560 occurring both in the wild and in captivity. Not to 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:24.480 not to say they're not interesting. We may come back 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:28.799 to some of them, but but yeah, they're very well documented. Yeah, 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:31.360 and uh, and also some very interesting ones in like 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:35.520 elephants and mongooses and birds and so forth. Now, if 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:39.800 you were to expand the definition of throwing to include 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:44.080 the projection of parts of the animals own body or 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:47.800 substances produced by the animal's own body, then the number 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:50.920 of examples really expands. Then you get all kinds of things, 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:55.279 Like you get spitting, which would include snakes. They're snakes 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:58.200 that project venom out of their mouths, out of their glands. 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:01.279 You have, of course, camels famously spit. All kinds of 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:05.400 animals spit, uh, and then you also have examples like spiders, 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:10.360 such as New World tarantulas. These spiders famously uh kind 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:15.000 of kick or shoot a little fibers known as urticating 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:18.880 hairs off of their bodies, and these are a defense 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:23.039 mechanism because the hairs can cause severe irritation to the 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:27.480 skin and mucous membranes of vertebrate animals that might threaten 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:29.880 the spiders. And you know, I've always thought of this 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:32.720 in the context of like tarantula itching powder, like it's 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:35.800 just an irritant. It's unpleasant, it gets on your skin, 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:38.720 it causes itching, makes you want to retreat. But apparently 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:42.880 in some cases of like the tarantulas with with more 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:46.279 severe hairs, this can even cause death in the cases 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:48.960 of some small animals when the when the hairs get 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:53.880 in their mucous membranes. Tarantulas are fascinating. I'd yet for 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:57.120 a return to the world of tarantulas again. But there 0:05:57.120 --> 0:06:00.000 are other spider examples too. You know, some other spiders 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:04.120 are known to project or throw threads of silk produced 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:07.599 again by their own bodies at prey to capture them. 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:11.520 But I think we probably don't want to count substances 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:15.479 produced by an animal's own body for throwing, because that 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:17.960 seems like a kind of that's a different class of 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:21.400 behavior than what we usually think about with throwing, because 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:23.520 when it comes out of the animal's own body, I 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:28.040 would think that usually tends to be an instinctual defensive 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:31.480 or predation mechanism. That's something that's probably just a wrote 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:36.440 behavioral program that exists. You know, it's evolutionarily coded into 0:06:36.480 --> 0:06:39.200 the animals a nervous system, so they just kind of 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:44.720 do it automatically. Whereas the throwing of free external objects 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:48.920 found in the nearby environment, I would argue that indicates 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:53.360 a very different kind of underlying mentality, a much more 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:57.400 interesting and versatile type of tool use. Well, of course, 0:06:57.400 --> 0:06:59.600 it's easy for us to say since our bodies don't 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:03.640 really produce weapons. Um it might be a different scenario 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:07.840 if human beings, say, produced and shed some form of 0:07:07.839 --> 0:07:11.000 horn or antler or um or I don't know, had 0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:13.960 had some other you know, let your imagination go wild. 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:17.280 But one might well imagine some sort of a humanoid 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:21.760 being that had some sort of evolved feature like this 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:26.800 That might blur the line. But but I, but I, 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:30.520 I do agree, yeah, with certainly with the human factor involved. Uh, 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:32.880 humans are are not really going to do much with 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:35.400 anything that their own body produces. They're gonna have to 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:38.000 turn to the things in the environment around them. Yeah, 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:40.360 it would be interesting if a human could like cough 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:44.120 up darts from their stomach on command. Now what now, 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:46.320 and I'm trying anything how to make that plausible? Okay? Now, 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:48.200 imagine you've got an animal that has a sort of 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:52.080 gizzard and they keep gizzard stones down there, and when 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:54.400 they need a weapon, they just vomit up a gizzard 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:56.920 stone and then they can throw that there. You go, 0:07:57.440 --> 0:07:59.720 surely somebody's had done something like that. That would that 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:01.520 would that would be terrific. You have some sort of 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:04.000 like a kaiju bird and one of its attacks is 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:08.320 vomiting stones at you, and these stones could perhaps you know, 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:11.880 be used it as some sort of a siege weapon. Okay. 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:15.760 So that's the distinction between like an instinctual throwing or 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:18.000 projecting of part of your body or something that comes 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:20.800 out of your body versus throwing of things found in 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:23.800 the environment. Another distinction I would like to make about 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:28.880 throwing is the important, the important difference between throwing away 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:33.880 and throwing at. For one example of this contained within 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:38.079 one animal. I think you could possibly make the argument 0:08:38.559 --> 0:08:42.760 that the ant lion might exhibit both types of throwing 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:46.240 because it certainly at least does one. So the ant lion, 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:49.840 at one stage in its life cycle, it it lives 0:08:49.880 --> 0:08:51.840 down at the bottom of a pit that has steep 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:56.600 sloped sides with uh. You know, the sides are lined 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:59.640 with sediment of a certain grain size, and a prey 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:02.760 and see falls in it can't climb back out, and 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:06.360 then the ant lion kicks sediment or sand up at 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:09.280 the insect, and the insect falls down into its jaws 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:12.800 and it eats them. And then after it's done, it 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:16.080 is typically known to fling the body out of the 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:18.480 pit by a similar motion to what it used to 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:22.640 fling the sand up at the insect falling in. Now, 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:25.199 I think you could definitely make the case that it 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:29.800 shows throwing away behavior because it's just rejecting the desiccated 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:33.520 exoskeleton of the of the ant that it has drained 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:37.480 of delicious juice. Is once it's done, right, yeah, absolutely, 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:43.160 But it may also display throwing at behavior, arguably because 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.200 as the ant is falling down, it will kick sand 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:50.080 up at the ant and uh, and you could argue 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:52.480 about whether that's actually at the ant or whether it's 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:56.280 just kind of generic sand throwing behavior that because the 0:09:56.280 --> 0:09:58.120 real purpose, I think is not for it to land 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:01.280 on the ant, but to de ableize the walls of 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:04.000 the pit and cause them to avalanche downward, bringing the 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:07.040 ant further towards the bottom with the sand. Yeah. I 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:08.840 believe we talked about the ant line a bit in 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:12.400 our episode on the star lac Um, comparing the star 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:18.080 lacks imagined biology to the Antlin's very real biology, and yeah, 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:21.559 they're fascinating little creatures. But the authors of this paper 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:25.120 also mentioned in the background how in some cases throwing 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:29.720 is a kind of tool use that also sort of 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:34.679 contains information. Like a projectile can be not only aggressive 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:38.440 and violent, but it can be a communicative social tool 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:43.040 between animals within a social species. And that brings us 0:10:43.080 --> 0:10:45.280 to the example of the octopus. Is because one thing 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:48.400 it's really important to realize about octopuses is that they 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:52.320 are for the most part, not social. They are incredibly 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:56.679 anti social as far as animals go. With perhaps a 0:10:56.720 --> 0:11:01.840 few notable exceptions, octopuses and really do not socialize with 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:06.079 other octopuses. They don't flock together they don't form groups 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:10.560 usually or have very complex social relationships. For the most part, 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:15.720 octopuses are solitary hunters, and when they do encounter one another, 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:19.600 they practice avoidance or sometimes outright violence. They will fight 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:23.719 one another and sometimes even cannibalize one another. Yeah, that 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:27.600 that seems to be the extent of octopus politics. However, 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:32.960 despite their usual antisocial nature, there is some previous evidence 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:36.880 that octopuses might be able to communicate with or signal 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:40.760 information to one another. And an example that the author's 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:43.680 pick here is one that has some of the same 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:47.600 authors as this this studying question. It's by David Shield, 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:51.200 Peter Godfrey Smith, and Matthew Lawrence called Signal Use by 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:55.439 Octopuses in Agonistic Interactions, published in Current Biology in twenty 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:59.560 six and this study looked at the same species as 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:01.439 our main studies going to be looking at here, one 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:06.920 called Octopus tetricus, and this species can change color pigment, 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:09.760 can change the color patterns on its skin in a 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:13.880 number of ways, and this report found a correlation between 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:19.560 color displays on this octopus skin and intra specific behaviors 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:24.280 behaviors showing interactions between members of the species. The author's 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:27.440 right quote. Here we show by field observation that in 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:31.480 a shallow water octopus Octopus tetricus, a range of visible 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:36.560 displays are produced during agonistic interactions, and these displays correlate 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:40.480 with the outcome of those interactions. Interactions in which dark 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:44.320 body color by an approaching octopus was matched by similar 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:48.240 color in the reacting octopus were more likely to escalate 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:52.360 to grappling darkness, and an approaching octopus met by paler 0:12:52.400 --> 0:12:57.839 color in the reacting octopus accompanied retreat of the paler octopus. 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:00.839 So this is interesting. It raises the stability that even 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:03.840 though these octopuses are not very friendly with one another 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:05.880 and they don't they don't really want to hang out 0:13:05.960 --> 0:13:09.480 and interact, they might still be communicating. They might be 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:14.040 using color displays to at least communicate information about their 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:17.880 intentions with one another, and that could be beneficial to 0:13:17.920 --> 0:13:22.040 both parties because it could help them avoid unnecessary violent conflict. 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:25.120 Like if you can change your color patterns to signal 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:28.240 like I mean business, I'm not going to back down, 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:30.800 or okay, okay, I'm not going to fight like that 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:33.679 can help you avoid a fight that would have happened otherwise. 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:37.280 M M yes, yes, this of course, a topic that's 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:40.560 come up recently on the show and a couple other episodes. 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:43.800 We talked about the Galapagos tortoise, about the showdowns between 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:47.920 these big males and how uh it is almost, if 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:52.320 not exclusively, non violent in that they just have these 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:55.080 showdowns with their neck, who's the who's the tallest, and 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:58.160 whoever is the judge to be the tallest winds and 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:01.200 there's no need for actual violence to take place. Uh. 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:04.240 It also reminds me of the the episode idea with 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:06.440 Joe Burger while you were out talking about goats and 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:11.200 rams getting into conflict over mineral resources, and part of 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:16.000 the issue there it does come down to how goats 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:19.840 deal with this sort of conflict between each other, how 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:22.080 rams deal with the sort of conflict with each other. 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:25.400 But then when you have goats and rams, there's can 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:29.360 be kind of a communication breakdown. It's really interesting. Yeah, well, 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:32.320 I mean it makes you think about how much apparent 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:37.080 uh conflict and violence within the natural world actually doesn't 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:39.720 come to violence because animals are often looking for a 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:42.160 way to avoid a fight. They just want to know 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:45.400 who would win and like find a way to sort 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:48.280 it out without having to do the violence. Yeah, even 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:51.760 in a lot of human combat, whether you're dealing with 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:57.200 individual level or more complex scenarios involving um uh, civilizations 0:14:57.240 --> 0:15:00.320 and so forth, there's uh, you know, there so many 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:02.280 different way there's a lot of posturing. But then they 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:05.920 are also the the fights or battles one might get 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:09.720 into with the intention of being stopped by others before 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:11.840 the battle can take place. Like, there's so many different 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:14.600 things to consider though. I also want to come back 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:17.640 to this example I mentioned about the changing color patterns 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:21.280 on on these octopuses. I think you could also have 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:25.200 non communicative interpretations of this as well, that that's possible, 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:29.960 but it's one good interpretation of that might be that 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:33.400 these animals are communicating with each other, they're sharing information, 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:36.560 even though they're not really a social species. Now, we 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:40.040 also know that octopuses are able to manipulate objects in 0:15:40.040 --> 0:15:43.600 their environments using the surprisingly deft touch of the eight 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:48.320 octopus arms raising the specter always of you know, possible 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:52.480 tool using intelligence and even maybe one day technological evolution 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:56.360 in the octopus. And we've seen many great examples of this. 0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:59.280 One that I always think of is in octopus nest 0:15:59.320 --> 0:16:03.320 building behavior. You r sometimes you'll find examples where um, 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:06.840 an octopus will be able to pull an an object 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:09.920 over the opening of its din in order to essentially 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:14.000 close the door, which I love. But also this study 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:19.400 mentions veined octopuses or anti octopus marginatus, which they say 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:22.520 quote carry can carry shelter in the form of nested 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:26.320 coconut shell haves that are then reassembled. You may have 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:29.960 seen video of this. Yeah, this is this is remarkable footage. 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:33.080 And I know just the just look watching an octopus 0:16:33.640 --> 0:16:36.760 in the wild or in captivity. It seems to have 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:39.280 inspired many to imagine what it would be like if 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:42.560 they actually use tools and weapons. Um. I was I 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:45.120 was trying to remember where I had specifically seen an 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:48.040 image of an octopus with like a hatchet in one 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:50.240 of its tentacles. I imagine this was maybe an old 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:53.040 Dungeons and Dragons illustration or something. But I did an 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:55.640 image search and I found that numerous people have have 0:16:55.800 --> 0:16:59.040 painted some sort of scenario in which an octopus is 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:01.920 carrying a spear. I saw one where there's like a 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:06.120 spear wheel wielding octopus battling a samurai octopus. So there 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:10.399 is something about the the the octopus arms that we 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:13.640 we can't help but imagine them doing truly or weapony 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:16.199 things with them. I'm not sure exactly why, but that 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:18.960 reminds me of the doom ba meme where people would 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:22.080 just like tape a knife to the top of their room. Ba. 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:26.560 I don't know if I saw that one, but that 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:38.880 sounds sounds dangerous. Thank thank thank, Okay, Well, anyway, these 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:41.960 two different threads we've been talking about the use of 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:46.600 materials or arguably tools from the environment by octopuses and 0:17:46.840 --> 0:17:51.640 behavior that might constitute social signaling between con specifics. These 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:56.399 two things come together in this studies. So the animal 0:17:56.400 --> 0:18:01.120 in question in this paper is the species to Pus tetricus, 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:05.720 also known as the gloomy octopus. Now why are they 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:09.440 called the gloomy octopus? Well, just look at their eyes. 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:13.280 Some people think that these animals have eyes that look 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:16.520 perennially unhappy. I don't know what I think about that. 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:19.880 It's it's hard to it's hard to read too much 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:22.600 human emotion into octopus eyes. But then again, I get 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:25.280 to staring at this and I don't know, maybe I 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:27.720 do feel kind of the mood coming down a little bit. 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:32.240 I don't know, Maybe I mean, I get kind of 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:36.360 a calm vibe off of this particular octopus. It looks cozy. Well, 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:38.159 they do like to be cozy. They like to to 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:41.439 hide in their dens. So the gloomy octopus is a 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:45.600 medium sized ben thick octopus ben thick meaning they live 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:48.560 on the sea floor and they occupy the waters around 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:52.080 Australia and New Zealand. But the particular population of animals 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:55.440 observed in this study live in a special zone along 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:59.080 the bottom of Jervis Bay, Australia, which is the coast 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:02.040 of New South Wales as it's south of Sydney. And 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:05.440 in this area along the bottom of Jervis Bay, many 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:09.880 individuals of the gloomy octopus live in very close proximity 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:14.879 to one another, high density, especially for octopuses, making dens 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:18.560 sometimes just right smack next to one another. Now, is 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:23.119 this a change and they're normally solitary antisocial nature, It 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:26.200 does not seem like that. There's no indication that these 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:30.359 animals like being near one another. Instead, it's a case 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:32.840 of a lot of octopuses trying to cram into a 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:38.200 spot that has both food abundance and excellent benthic strata 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:41.640 for making dens. So it's good real estate to make 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:44.720 homes in, and it's lots of great food, and it's 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:48.800 surrounded on all sides by terrible real estate, just sort 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:53.520 of featureless mud flats, which sort of prevents these octopuses 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:56.720 from spreading out. So for a human analogy, imagine a 0:19:56.800 --> 0:19:59.600 kind of tiny island in the middle of the ocean 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:02.160 with of food on it, lots of great stuff there, 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:05.800 but it's just swarming with antisocial introverts who don't want 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:07.919 to talk to each other. I think I've had this 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:11.439 experience on most road trips I've taken. You know, you 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:14.840 find that one exit that has that one chain coffee 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:18.200 store that you need and can depend on. Um and Yeah, 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:20.720 an alien observing you might say, look at all these people. 0:20:20.960 --> 0:20:23.600 They all love each other there, they love being around 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:28.240 each other. Oh that's good. So these spots in in 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:34.760 Jervis Bay have been nicknamed things like octo Lantis or Octopolis. 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:37.640 A lot of just a lot of these antisocial non 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:43.040 buddies squeezing into a relatively small area. Naturally, there's gonna 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:46.560 be some conflict here. The octopus is regularly get in 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:50.160 one another's space, and this leads to the creatures poking 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:55.000 and grappling, grabbing, generally harassing each other. Now, it was 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:59.520 in studying this Jervis Bay population of Tetracus that the 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:04.080 author is first observed what they called a throwing behavior. 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:07.480 And the team collected many hours of video footage from 0:21:07.520 --> 0:21:11.040 emplaced cameras from a couple of different sessions. I think 0:21:11.040 --> 0:21:15.679 there was some footage from and from and uh and 0:21:15.800 --> 0:21:19.200 they write quote here we provide the first report for 0:21:19.240 --> 0:21:23.679 any octopus species of a behavior frequently seen at these aggregations, 0:21:24.160 --> 0:21:28.960 the throwing or projection of debris, both in social interactions 0:21:29.040 --> 0:21:33.720 and in other contexts. Ballistic motion of manipulable objects is 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:37.359 possible through water, albeit against greater resistance than through air. 0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:43.800 These throws by Octopus tetricus sometimes hit other octopuses, So 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:47.679 they are throwing debris sometimes hitting other octopuses. And the 0:21:47.720 --> 0:21:51.320 big question is are they doing it on purpose? Are 0:21:51.359 --> 0:21:55.000 they targeting one another on purpose? And if they are, 0:21:55.440 --> 0:21:58.800 is that a social signal of some kind? Now, I 0:21:58.800 --> 0:22:02.120 think it's important to first just describe exactly what's going 0:22:02.160 --> 0:22:05.280 on here. When when an octopus is said to quote 0:22:05.320 --> 0:22:09.960 throw something, octopuses do not throw the way humans do. 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:13.320 By building momentum with an arm motion and then releasing 0:22:14.119 --> 0:22:15.800 or at least not most of the time. The team 0:22:15.800 --> 0:22:20.120 apparently documented one case of an octopus throwing what looked 0:22:20.160 --> 0:22:23.120 to be a bivalve shell by holding it in its arm, 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:27.600 quickly straightening the arm, and then releasing the shell. Uh. Instead, 0:22:27.640 --> 0:22:30.160 what happens is most of the time the octopus would 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:34.040 throw by way of its siphon, and the siphon, also 0:22:34.080 --> 0:22:37.359 called a funnel, is kind of a tube shaped organ 0:22:38.040 --> 0:22:40.520 that octopus is used to swim. You can think of 0:22:40.560 --> 0:22:43.080 it as an organic water jet. It's sort of a 0:22:43.119 --> 0:22:46.239 pump that pumps water out the back and allows the 0:22:46.280 --> 0:22:51.560 octopus to to by reaction, push its body forward. Interesting, 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:55.240 so in in these in these cases of an octopus 0:22:55.400 --> 0:22:58.400 throwing it, depending on what is being thrown, you could 0:22:58.400 --> 0:23:00.159 think of it as being like they they've load did 0:23:00.200 --> 0:23:04.359 their their biocannon, their their fluid based biocannon with like 0:23:04.520 --> 0:23:07.240 a piece of shell, and are firing it. Or it's 0:23:07.240 --> 0:23:10.359 just kind of like loaded with debris yet well sort of, 0:23:10.400 --> 0:23:13.159 I mean that is good, I think, except actually what 0:23:13.240 --> 0:23:15.840 the cannon is loaded with is just water as usual. 0:23:15.920 --> 0:23:18.879 It's more like they've loaded a cannon and they have 0:23:19.119 --> 0:23:21.800 put the thing they want to throw right in front 0:23:21.880 --> 0:23:24.760 of the cannon so that when the cannonball comes out, 0:23:24.800 --> 0:23:26.800 it hits the thing they want to throw. The cannonball 0:23:26.840 --> 0:23:30.280 just being water and propels it towards the target. Again, 0:23:30.320 --> 0:23:33.080 assuming that these are targeted throws. We don't know that 0:23:33.119 --> 0:23:36.120 for sure, but going with that for a minute. So 0:23:36.760 --> 0:23:38.840 it's a several step procedure. It goes like this. So 0:23:39.000 --> 0:23:43.480 this octopus, Octopus tetricus, it will gather external material. And 0:23:43.480 --> 0:23:47.600 there were three main types of material that the author's 0:23:47.720 --> 0:23:51.800 observed being thrown in the study. One is shells, generally 0:23:51.840 --> 0:23:55.159 mollusk shells, so like scallop shells, which also would be 0:23:55.200 --> 0:23:58.520 shells of things that the octopuses are eating. And then 0:23:58.520 --> 0:24:02.000 the other one is algae, and then finally silt or 0:24:02.080 --> 0:24:05.000 sediment from the seafloor, so just you know, sand, that 0:24:05.080 --> 0:24:07.800 kind of stuff. This sounds like dirty Fighters. It sounds 0:24:07.840 --> 0:24:11.399 like like the scene in so many movies, especially like 0:24:11.440 --> 0:24:13.639 Sword and Sandal movies, where there's some sort of a 0:24:13.680 --> 0:24:17.199 gladiatorial combat going on, and what does the villain do. Oh, 0:24:17.240 --> 0:24:20.520