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Speaker 1: Hey a you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 2: And I'm Joe McCormick, and today we are bringing you

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Speaker 2: an episode from the vault. Rob and I are out

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Speaker 2: this week, so we've got some classic episodes for you,

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Speaker 2: or at least classic from last year. This is Animals

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Speaker 2: Throwing Stuff, Part one, the first part of a series

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Speaker 2: we did about throwing behavior and non human animals. We

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Speaker 2: did eventually end up talking about the emergence of throwing

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Speaker 2: as a human behavior as well. This one originally aired

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Speaker 2: on January third, twenty twenty three.

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Speaker 1: We hope you.

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Speaker 3: Enjoy Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 2: And I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're going to be

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Speaker 2: kicking off a series of episodes about examples of throwing

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Speaker 2: in non human animals. We may also talk about the

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Speaker 2: evolution of throwing in humans as well, but this is

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Speaker 2: a subject I recently became interested in, specifically because of

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Speaker 2: a paper that was published in November twenty twenty two.

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Speaker 2: Some of you might have seen science headlines going around

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Speaker 2: about this. There was a publication in the Journal plus

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Speaker 2: one about octopuses throwing objects, or at least potentially throwing objects.

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Speaker 2: Whether or not it should count as debatable, and we'll

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Speaker 2: talk about some of the arguments for and against. But

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Speaker 2: octopuses at least allegedly throwing objects, potentially deliberately, and potentially

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Speaker 2: deliberately aiming those objects at other octopuses, though of course,

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Speaker 2: the exact nature of their motivations is somewhat mysterious. It's

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Speaker 2: hard to suss out exactly. And I thought it would

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Speaker 2: be good to to start off our series by looking

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Speaker 2: at this example that first got me interested in this,

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Speaker 2: and then maybe we can branch out to other examples

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Speaker 2: of throwing in the animal world in subsequent episodes.

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Speaker 1: Interesting, I just assumed that your interest in this topic

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Speaker 1: was because you had become a father and you were

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Speaker 1: already feeling the pull. You already were longing to throw

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Speaker 1: ball with your child, which is something that I felt

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Speaker 1: when I became a father. I was like, well, I've

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Speaker 1: got to get a ball, right, I've got to get

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Speaker 1: a mit. I have no other connection to baseball at all,

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Speaker 1: or softball or any of these sports, no attachment to them.

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Speaker 1: I don't play them or watch them. But there's something

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Speaker 1: about throwing that must be done with the child.

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Speaker 2: I do like throwing a ball. I think I'm more

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Speaker 2: into like a tennis ball in the hand than a baseball.

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Speaker 1: But that's a dog thing, that's for dogs. I guess

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Speaker 1: that's true.

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Speaker 2: Also, No, I'm not talking about with like the scoop,

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Speaker 2: I mean the rollerball scoop. I mean tennis ball straight

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Speaker 2: in the hand. Okay, all right, but no, that's not

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Speaker 2: the reason. And if I were to go with the

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Speaker 2: motor activities I've been thinking of more since becoming a father,

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Speaker 2: would be the act of knocking things over after they've

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Speaker 2: been set up. I think that's an interesting impulse that

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Speaker 2: we could study.

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Speaker 1: Oh yes, definitely.

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Speaker 2: But onto the octopus study. So this paper was by

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Speaker 2: Peter Godfrey Smith, David Shiel, Stephanie Chancellor, Stefan Linquist, and

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Speaker 2: Matthew Lawrence, and it was called in the Line of

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Speaker 2: Fire Debris Throwing by Wild Octopuses, published published in Plus one,

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty two. And so first I'm going to talk

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Speaker 2: about what the authors report and argue in this paper here,

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Speaker 2: and then we'll talk about some context as well as

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Speaker 2: some criticism or differences in interpretation. Now, for background on

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Speaker 2: this subject, I think we can safely say that not

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Speaker 2: a lot of animals throw things at all. Throwing is

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Speaker 2: a relatively unique behavior, and the authors of this study say,

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Speaker 2: quote a throw can be distinguished from other phenomena by

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Speaker 2: the ballistic motion of a manipulable object or material, where

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Speaker 2: ballistic describes free motion and momentum. So when I think

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Speaker 2: of throwing, I think of taking a free external object

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Speaker 2: or material, so not part of your own body, and

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Speaker 2: projecting it through the environment toward a target. Throwing is

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Speaker 2: so unique that it has sometimes been characterized as exclusively

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Speaker 2: the domain of humans. But there are a number of

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Speaker 2: animal behaviors that I think should count as throwing. We'll

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Speaker 2: talk about them throughout the series. Some very clear examples

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Speaker 2: that I don't think anybody would really dispute, like the

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Speaker 2: throwing behaviors of primates like chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys.

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Speaker 1: Right right, Yeah, there are plenty of examples of this

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Speaker 1: occurring both in the wild and in captive. Not to

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Speaker 1: say they're not interested. We may come back to some

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Speaker 1: of them, but yeah, they're very well documented.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and also some very interesting ones in like elephants

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Speaker 2: and mongooses and birds and so forth. Yeah, Now, if

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Speaker 2: you were to expand the definition of throwing to include

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Speaker 2: the projection of parts of the animal's own body or

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Speaker 2: substances produced by the animal's own body, then the number

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Speaker 2: of examples really expands. Then you get all kinds of things,

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Speaker 2: Like you get spitting, which would include snakes. There's snakes

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Speaker 2: that project venom out of their mouths, out of their glands.

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Speaker 2: You have, of course, camels famously spit. All kinds of

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Speaker 2: animals spit. And then you also have examples like spiders

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Speaker 2: such as New World tarantulas. These spiders famously kind of

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Speaker 2: kick or shoot a little fibers known as irticating hairs

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Speaker 2: off of their bodies, and these are a defense mechanism

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Speaker 2: because the hairs can cause severe irritation to the skin

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Speaker 2: and mucous membranes of vertebrate animals that might threaten the spiders.

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Speaker 2: And you know, I've always thought of this in the

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Speaker 2: context of like tarantula itching powder, Like it's just an irritant,

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Speaker 2: it's unpleasant, it gets on your skin, it causes itching,

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Speaker 2: makes you want to retreat. But apparently in some cases

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Speaker 2: of like the tarantulas, with more severe hairs. This can

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Speaker 2: even cause death in the cases of some small animals

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Speaker 2: when the hairs get in their mucous membranes.

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Speaker 1: Tarantulas are fascinating. I'd be up for a return to

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Speaker 1: the world of tarantulas again.

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Speaker 2: But there are other spider examples too. Some other spiders

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Speaker 2: are known to project or throw threads of silk produced

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Speaker 2: again by their own bodies at prey to capture them.

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Speaker 2: But I think we probably don't want to count substances

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Speaker 2: produced by an animal's own body for throwing, because that

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Speaker 2: seems like a kind of that's a different class of

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Speaker 2: behavior than what we usually think about with throwing, because

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Speaker 2: when it comes out of the animal's own body, I

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Speaker 2: would think that usually tends to be an instinctual, defensive

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Speaker 2: or predation mechanism. That's something that's probably just a rote

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Speaker 2: behavioral program that exists. You know, it's evolutionarily coded into

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Speaker 2: the animal's nervous system, so they just kind of do

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Speaker 2: it automatically. Whereas the throwing of free external objects found

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Speaker 2: in the nearby environment, I would argue that indicates a

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Speaker 2: very different kind of underlying mentality, a much more interesting

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Speaker 2: and versatile type of tool use.

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Speaker 1: Well. Of course, it's easy for us to say since

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Speaker 1: our bodies don't really produce weapons. It might be a

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Speaker 1: different scenario if human beings, say, produced and shed some

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Speaker 1: form of horn or antler, or I don't know, had

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Speaker 1: had some other you know, let your imagination go wild.

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Speaker 1: But one might well imagine some sort of a humanoid

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Speaker 1: being that had some sort of evolved feature like this.

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Speaker 1: That might blur the line. But I do agree, Yeah, certainly,

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Speaker 1: with the human factor involved, humans are not really going

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Speaker 1: to do much with anything that their own body produces.

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Speaker 1: They're going to have to turn to the things in

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Speaker 1: the environment around them.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it would be interesting if a human could like

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Speaker 2: cough up darts from their stomach on command. Now what now,

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Speaker 2: I'm trying to think how to make that plausible. Okay, Now,

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Speaker 2: imagine you've got an animal that has a sort of

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Speaker 2: gizzard and they keep gizzard stones down there, and when

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Speaker 2: they need a weapon, they just vomit up a gizzard

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Speaker 2: stone and then they can throw that there.

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Speaker 1: You go, surely somebody's had done something like that. Would

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Speaker 1: that would be terrific. You have some sort of like

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Speaker 1: a kaiju bird and one of its attacks is vomiting

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Speaker 1: stones at you and these stones could perhaps you know,

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Speaker 1: be used as some sort of a siege weapon.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so that's the distinction between like an instinctual throwing

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Speaker 2: or projecting of part of your body or something that

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Speaker 2: comes out of your body versus throwing of things found

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Speaker 2: in the environment. Another distinction I would like to make

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Speaker 2: about throwing is the important difference between throwing away and

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Speaker 2: throwing at. For one example of this contained within one animal,

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Speaker 2: I think you could possibly make the argument that the

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Speaker 2: ant lion might exhibit both types of throwing, because it

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Speaker 2: certainly at least does one. So the ant lion, at

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Speaker 2: one stage in its life cycle, it lives down at

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Speaker 2: the bottom of a pit that has steep sloped sides

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Speaker 2: with the sides are lined with sediment of a certain

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Speaker 2: grain size, and a prey insect falls in it can't

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Speaker 2: climb back out, and then the ant lion kicks sediment

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Speaker 2: or sand up at the insect, and the insect falls

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Speaker 2: down into its jaws and it eats them. And then

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Speaker 2: after it's done, it is typically known to fling the

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Speaker 2: body out of the pit by a similar motion to

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Speaker 2: what it used to fling the sand up at the

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Speaker 2: insect falling in now, I think you could definitely make

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Speaker 2: the case that it shows throwing away behavior because it's

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Speaker 2: just rejecting the desiccated exoskeleton of the ant that it

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Speaker 2: has drained of delicious juices once it's done right. Yeah, absolutely,

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Speaker 2: But it may also display throwing at behavior, arguably because

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Speaker 2: as the ant is falling down, it will kick sand

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Speaker 2: up at the ant, and you could argue about whether

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Speaker 2: that's actually at the ant or whether it's just kind

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Speaker 2: of generic sand throwing behavior that because the real purpose,

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Speaker 2: I think is not for it to land on the ant,

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Speaker 2: but to destabilize the walls of the pit and cause

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Speaker 2: them to avalanche downward, bringing the ant further toward the

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Speaker 2: bottom with the sand.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I believe we talked about the ant line a

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Speaker 1: bit in our episode on the Sarlac, comparing the sarlacs

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Speaker 1: imagined biology to the ant lion's very real biology, and yeah,

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Speaker 1: they're fascinating little creatures.

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Speaker 2: But the authors of this paper all so mentioned in

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Speaker 2: the background how in some cases throwing is a kind

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Speaker 2: of tool use that also sort of contains information. Like

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Speaker 2: a projectile can be not only aggressive and violent, but

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Speaker 2: it can be a communicative social tool between animals within

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Speaker 2: a social species, and that brings us to the example

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Speaker 2: of the octopuses, because one thing it's really important to

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Speaker 2: realize about octopuses is that they are, for the most part,

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Speaker 2: not social. They are incredibly antisocial as far as animals go.

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Speaker 2: With perhaps a few notable exceptions, octopuses generally do not

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Speaker 2: socialize with other octopuses. They don't flock together, they don't

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Speaker 2: form groups usually or have very complex social relationships. For

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Speaker 2: the most part, octopuses are solitary hunters, and when they

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Speaker 2: do encounter one another, they practice avoidance or sometimes outright violence.

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Speaker 2: They will fight one another and sometimes even cannibal one another.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that seems to be the extent of octopus politics.

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Speaker 2: However, despite their usual antisocial nature, there is some previous

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Speaker 2: evidence that octopuses might be able to communicate with or

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Speaker 2: signal information to one another, and an example that the

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Speaker 2: author's pick here is one that has some of the

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Speaker 2: same authors as this study in question. It's by David Shield,

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Speaker 2: Peter Godfrey Smith, and Matthew Lawrence, called Signal Use by

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Speaker 2: Octopuses in Agonistic Interactions, published in Current Biology in twenty sixteen,

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Speaker 2: and this study looked at the same species as our

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Speaker 2: main study is going to be looking at here one

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Speaker 2: called Octopus tetricus, and this species can change color pigment.

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Speaker 2: It can change the color patterns on its skin in

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Speaker 2: a number of ways. And this report found a correlation

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Speaker 2: between color displays on this octopus's skin and intraspecific behaviors,

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Speaker 2: behaviors showing interactions between members of this species. The authors write, quote,

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Speaker 2: here we show by field observation that in a shallow

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Speaker 2: water octopus Octopus tetricus, a range of visible displays are

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Speaker 2: produced during agonistic interactions, and these displays correlate with the

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Speaker 2: outcome of those interactions. Interactions in which dark body color

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Speaker 2: by an approaching octopus was matched by similar color in

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Speaker 2: the reacting octopus were more likely to escalate to grappling darkness,

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Speaker 2: and an approaching octopus met by paler color in the

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Speaker 2: reacting octopus accompanied retreat of the paler octopus. So this

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Speaker 2: is interesting. It raises the possibility that even though these

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Speaker 2: octopuses are not very friendly with one another and they

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Speaker 2: don't really want to hang out and interact, they might

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Speaker 2: still be communicating. They might be using color displays to

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Speaker 2: at least communicate information about their intentions with one another,

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Speaker 2: and that could be beneficial to both parties because it

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Speaker 2: could help them avoid unnecessary violent cons Like if you

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Speaker 2: can change your color patterns to signal like I mean business,

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Speaker 2: I'm not going to back down, or okay, okay, I'm

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Speaker 2: not going to fight like that can help you avoid

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Speaker 2: a fight that would have happened otherwise.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yes, this is of course a topic that's come

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Speaker 1: up recently on the show. In a couple other episodes,

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Speaker 1: we talked about the Galapagos tortoise, about the showdowns between

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Speaker 1: these big males and how it is almost, if not exclusively,

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Speaker 1: non violent in that they just have these showdowns with

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Speaker 1: their neck who's the tallest, and whoever is the judge

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Speaker 1: would be the tallest wins, and there's no need for

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Speaker 1: actual violence to take place. It also reminds me of

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Speaker 1: the episode I did with Joe Berger while you were

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Speaker 1: out talking about goats and rams getting into conflict over

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Speaker 1: mineral resources, and part of the issue there it does

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Speaker 1: come down to how goats deal with this sort of

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Speaker 1: conflict between each other, how rams deal with this sort

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Speaker 1: of conflict with the each other. But then when you

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Speaker 1: have goats and rams, there can be kind of a

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Speaker 1: communication breakdown. It's really interesting.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean it makes you think about how

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Speaker 2: much apparent conflict and violence within the natural world actually

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Speaker 2: doesn't come to violence because animals are often looking for

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Speaker 2: a way to avoid a fight. They just want to

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Speaker 2: know who would win and like find a way to

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Speaker 2: sort it out without having to do the violence.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Even in a lot of human combat, whether you're

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Speaker 1: dealing with individual level or more complex scenarios involving civilizations

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Speaker 1: and so forth. You know, there's so many different ways.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot of posturing. But then there are also

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Speaker 1: the fights or battles one might get into with the

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Speaker 1: intention of being stopped by others before the battle can

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Speaker 1: take place. Like, there's so many different things to consider though.

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Speaker 2: I also want to come back to this example I

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Speaker 2: mentioned about the changing color patterns on these octopuses. I

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Speaker 2: think you could also have non communicative interpretations of this

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Speaker 2: as well. That's possible, but it's one good interpretation of

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Speaker 2: that might be that these animals are communicating with each other,

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Speaker 2: they're sharing information, even though they're not really a social species. Now,

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Speaker 2: we also know that octopuses are able to manipulate objects

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Speaker 2: in their environments using the surprisingly deft touch of the

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Speaker 2: eight octopus arms, raising the specter always of possible tool

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Speaker 2: using intelligence and even maybe one day technological evolution in

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Speaker 2: the octopus. And we've seen many great examples of this.

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Speaker 2: One that I always think of is in octopus nest

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Speaker 2: building behavior. Sometimes you'll find examples where an octopus will

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Speaker 2: be able to pull an object over the opening of

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Speaker 2: its den in order to essentially close the door, which

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Speaker 2: I love. But also this study mentions veined octopuses or

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Speaker 2: anti octopus marginatus, which they say, quote Carrie can carry

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Speaker 2: shelter in the form of nested coconut shell halves that

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Speaker 2: are then reassembled. You may have seen video of this.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, this is this is remarkable footage, and I know

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Speaker 1: just the just look watching an octopus in the wild

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Speaker 1: or in captivity. It seems to have inspired many to

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Speaker 1: imagine what it would be like if they actually use

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Speaker 1: tools and weapons. I was trying to remember where I

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Speaker 1: had specifically seen an image of an octopus with like

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Speaker 1: a hatchet in one of its tentacles. I imagine this

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Speaker 1: was maybe an old Dungeons and Dragons illustration or something.

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Speaker 1: But I did an image search and I found that

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Speaker 1: numerous people have have painted some sort of a scenario

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Speaker 1: in which an octopus is carrying a spear. I saw

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Speaker 1: one where there's like a spear wielding octopus battling a

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Speaker 1: samurai octopus. So there is something about the octopus arms

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Speaker 1: that we can't help but imagine them doing tully or

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Speaker 1: weapony things with them.

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Speaker 2: Not sure exactly why, but that reminds me of the

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Speaker 2: doomba meme where people would just like tape a knife

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Speaker 2: to the top of their roomba.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if I saw that one, but sounds dangerous.

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Speaker 2: Okay, Well, anyway, these two different threads we've been talking

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Speaker 2: about the use of materials or arguably tools from the

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Speaker 2: environment by octopuses and behavior that might constitute social signaling

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Speaker 2: between conspecifics. These two things come together in this twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty two study. So the animal in question in this

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Speaker 2: paper is the species Octopus tetricus, also known as the

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Speaker 2: gloomy octopus. Now why are they called the gloomy octopus? Well,

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Speaker 2: just look at their eyes. Some people think that these

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Speaker 2: animals have eyes that look perennially unhappy. I don't know

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Speaker 2: what I think about that. It's hard to it's hard

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Speaker 2: to read too much human emotion into octopus eyes. But

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Speaker 2: then again, I get to staring at this and I

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Speaker 2: don't know, maybe I do feel kind of the mood

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Speaker 2: coming down a little bit.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe I mean I get kind of

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Speaker 1: a calm vibe off of this particular octopus. It looks cozy.

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Speaker 2: Well, they do like to be cozy. They like to

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Speaker 2: hide in their dens. So, the gloomy octopus is a

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Speaker 2: medium sized benthic octopus. Benthic meaning they live on the

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Speaker 2: seafloor and they occupy the waters around Australia and New Zealand.

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Speaker 2: But the particular population of animals observed in this study

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Speaker 2: live in a special zone along the bottom of Jervis Bay, Australia,

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Speaker 2: which is the coast of New South Wales at south

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Speaker 2: of Sydney. And in this area along the bottom of

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Speaker 2: Jervis Bay, many individuals of the gloomy octopus live in

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Speaker 2: very close proximity to one another, high density, especially four octopuses,

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Speaker 2: making dens sometimes just right smack next to one another. Now,

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Speaker 2: is this a change? And they're normally solitary anti so nature,

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Speaker 2: it does not seem like that. There's no indication that

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Speaker 2: these animals like being near one another. Instead, it's a

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Speaker 2: case of a lot of octopuses trying to cram into

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Speaker 2: a spot that has both food abundance and excellent benthic

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Speaker 2: strata for making dens. So it's good real estate to

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Speaker 2: make homes in, and it's lots of great food, and

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Speaker 2: it's surrounded on all sides by terrible real estate, just

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Speaker 2: sort of featureless mudflats, which sort of prevents these octopuses

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Speaker 2: from spreading out. So for a human analogy, imagine a

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Speaker 2: kind of tiny island in the middle of the ocean

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Speaker 2: with tons of food on it, lots of great stuff there,

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Speaker 2: but it's just swarming with antisocial introverts who don't want

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Speaker 2: to talk to each other.

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Speaker 1: I think I've had this experience on most road trips

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Speaker 1: I've taken. You know, you find that one exit that

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Speaker 1: has that one chain coffee store that you need and

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Speaker 1: can depend on. And yeah, an alien observing you might say,

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Speaker 1: look at all these people. They all love each Yes,

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Speaker 1: they love being around each other. Oh that's good.

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Speaker 2: So these spots in Jervis Bay have been nicknamed things

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Speaker 2: like Octolantis or Octopolis. Just a lot of these anti

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Speaker 2: social non buddies squeezing into a relatively small area. Naturally

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Speaker 2: there's going to be some conflict here. The octopuses regularly

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Speaker 2: get in one another's space, and this leads to the

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Speaker 2: creatures poking and grappling, grabbing, generally harassing each other. Now,

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Speaker 2: it was in studying this Jervis Bay population of Tetricus

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Speaker 2: that the authors first observed what they called a throwing behavior.

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Speaker 2: And the team collected many hours of video footage from

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Speaker 2: emplaced cameras from a couple of different sessions. I think

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Speaker 2: there was some footage from twenty fifteen and from twenty sixteen,

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Speaker 2: and they write, quote, here we provide the first report

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Speaker 2: for any octopus species of a behavior freaque at these aggregations.

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Speaker 2: The throwing or projection of debris, both in social interactions

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Speaker 2: and in other contexts. Ballistic motion of manipulable objects is

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Speaker 2: possible through water, albeit against greater resistance than through air.

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Speaker 2: These throws by Octopus tetricus sometimes hit other octopuses. So

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Speaker 2: they are throwing debris, sometimes hitting other octopuses. And the

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Speaker 2: big question is are they doing it on purpose? Are

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Speaker 2: they targeting one another on purpose? And if they are,

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Speaker 2: is that a social signal of some kind?

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Speaker 1: Now?

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Speaker 2: I think it's important to first just describe exactly what's

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Speaker 2: going on here. When an octopus is said to quote,

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Speaker 2: throw something, Octopuses do not throw the way humans do

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Speaker 2: by building momentum with an arm motion and then releasing,

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Speaker 2: or at least not most of the time. The team

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Speaker 2: apparently documented one case of an octopus throwing what looked

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Speaker 2: to be a bivalve shell by holding it in its arm,

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Speaker 2: quickly straightening the arm, and then releasing the shell. Instead,

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Speaker 2: what happens is most of the time the octopus would

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Speaker 2: throw by way of its siphon, and the siphon, also

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Speaker 2: called a funnel, is kind of a tube shaped organ

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Speaker 2: that octopuses used to swim. You can think of it

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Speaker 2: as an organic water jet. It's sort of a pump

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Speaker 2: that pumps water out the back and allows the octopus

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Speaker 2: to to by reaction, push its body forward.

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Speaker 1: Interesting, so in these in these cases of an octopus throwing,

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Speaker 1: depending on what is being thrown, you could think of

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Speaker 1: it as being like they've loaded their their biocannon, their

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Speaker 1: their fluid based biocanon with like say, a piece of

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Speaker 1: shell and are firing it. Or it's just kind of

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Speaker 1: like loaded with debris.

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Speaker 2: Yet well sort of I mean that is good, I think,

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Speaker 2: except actually what the cannon is loaded with is just

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Speaker 2: water as usual. It's more like they've loaded a cannon

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Speaker 2: and they have put the thing they want to throw

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Speaker 2: right in front of the cannon, so that when the

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Speaker 2: cannonball comes out, it hits the thing they want to throw,

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Speaker 2: the cannonball just being water and propels it toward the target. Again,

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Speaker 2: assuming that these are targeted throws. We don't know that

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Speaker 2: for sure, but going with that for a minute. So

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Speaker 2: it's a several step procedure. It goes like this. So

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Speaker 2: this octopus, Octopus tetricus, it will gather external material. And

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Speaker 2: there were three main types of material that the authors

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Speaker 2: observed being thrown in the study. One is shells, generally

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Speaker 2: mollusk shells, though like scallop shells, which also would be

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Speaker 2: the shells of things that the octopuses are eating. And

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Speaker 2: then the other one is algae and then finally silt

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Speaker 2: or sediment from the sea floor, so just you know,

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Speaker 2: mup sand, that kind of stuff.

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Speaker 1: This sounds like dirty Fighters. It sounds like the scene

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Speaker 1: in so many movies, especially like Sword and Sandal movies,

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Speaker 1: where there's some sort of a gladiatorial combat going on,

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Speaker 1: and what does the villain do. Oh, he's going to

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Speaker 1: get a little sand off the battleground floor throw it

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Speaker 1: in the eyes.

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Speaker 2: Of Except the gloomy octopuses are all dirty fighters. They

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Speaker 2: love to shoot this silt, so you scoop that up

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Speaker 2: in your arm, So they're actually using their arms for

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Speaker 2: this part, scooping up the thing whatever it is, shells, algae,

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Speaker 2: or silt, and then they hold it underneath the body.

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Speaker 2: They hold it underneath the body with your arms, and

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Speaker 2: then they position their siphon underneath the body, which is

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Speaker 2: not normally where it is. They kind of hook it

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Speaker 2: under so that it lines up behind this stuff, and

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Speaker 2: then they release the stuff with their arms at the

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Speaker 2: same time that they blast it with a jet of

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Speaker 2: water from the siphon, and then that jet of water

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Speaker 2: carries the sediment toward its target. So again, this is

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Speaker 2: very different than human throwing. I think for a rough analogy,

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Speaker 2: you'd have to imagine that you could throw a baseball

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Speaker 2: not by extending your arm rapidly and releasing it, but

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Speaker 2: by like holding the baseball in front of your face

432
00:25:56,040 --> 00:25:58,840
Speaker 2: and then suddenly releasing it from your hand and at

433
00:25:58,880 --> 00:26:02,359
Speaker 2: the same time blowing on it really hard to shoot

434
00:26:02,359 --> 00:26:04,639
Speaker 2: it off where you want it to go, and of

435
00:26:04,680 --> 00:26:06,679
Speaker 2: course in order to do this we need to have

436
00:26:07,440 --> 00:26:10,879
Speaker 2: far more lung capacity and diaphragm power than humans actually

437
00:26:10,880 --> 00:26:13,879
Speaker 2: do have. But just imagine you could briefly create like

438
00:26:13,920 --> 00:26:18,240
Speaker 2: a little jet engine exhaust port with your mouth. And

439
00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:21,480
Speaker 2: this is interesting because it reminds me of stories I've

440
00:26:21,800 --> 00:26:28,680
Speaker 2: read elsewhere of octopuses using directed siphon jets, but without

441
00:26:28,800 --> 00:26:32,600
Speaker 2: any material being propelled other than the water itself, Like

442
00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:35,640
Speaker 2: the main thing is something of their stories of octopuses

443
00:26:35,640 --> 00:26:39,880
Speaker 2: in captivity squirting their handlers with water from their siphon,

444
00:26:40,280 --> 00:26:43,400
Speaker 2: often in the context of the handler believing at least

445
00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:46,520
Speaker 2: that the octopus is annoyed with them or being defensive.

446
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:52,320
Speaker 1: And of course this is also reminiscent of squid using

447
00:26:52,359 --> 00:26:55,440
Speaker 1: their ink in various ways, though of course that would

448
00:26:55,880 --> 00:26:58,640
Speaker 1: would obviously be an example again of an animal using

449
00:26:58,680 --> 00:27:02,399
Speaker 1: something created by its own rather than in this case,

450
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:04,520
Speaker 1: using something from their environment.

451
00:27:05,080 --> 00:27:09,200
Speaker 2: Right exactly so, when the researchers watch the gloomy octopus

452
00:27:09,280 --> 00:27:13,560
Speaker 2: do this throwing of shells, weeds, and silt, some of

453
00:27:13,600 --> 00:27:18,520
Speaker 2: the instances were obviously cases of simple rejection behavior. The

454
00:27:18,680 --> 00:27:22,040
Speaker 2: throwing away. We talked about it earlier, and a great

455
00:27:22,040 --> 00:27:25,640
Speaker 2: example of this would be what they classified as eating

456
00:27:25,800 --> 00:27:30,119
Speaker 2: based throwing behavior. So sometimes the octopus is going to eat,

457
00:27:30,560 --> 00:27:34,240
Speaker 2: you know, a bivalve or something. Maybe it eats a scallop,

458
00:27:34,280 --> 00:27:36,560
Speaker 2: and then it throws the shells away. When it's done,

459
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 2: it actually projects them away from the body. Other examples

460
00:27:41,080 --> 00:27:45,080
Speaker 2: of throwing away behavior would be the classification they call

461
00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:49,679
Speaker 2: den cleaning. The octopuses actually do tidy up their dens.

462
00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:51,480
Speaker 2: So they're going to try to make a little heidi

463
00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:54,600
Speaker 2: hole to settle into on the seafloor, and sometimes I

464
00:27:54,600 --> 00:27:56,520
Speaker 2: guess it gets dirty in there, so they want to

465
00:27:56,720 --> 00:27:59,520
Speaker 2: basically blast a bunch of stuff out of there. And

466
00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:02,720
Speaker 2: so they will do this with their dens to get

467
00:28:02,760 --> 00:28:03,879
Speaker 2: things out of the hole.

468
00:28:04,320 --> 00:28:05,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't want your midden to get out of

469
00:28:05,960 --> 00:28:08,679
Speaker 1: control there with the bones of your many kills or

470
00:28:08,680 --> 00:28:10,119
Speaker 1: the shells of your many kills.

471
00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:15,359
Speaker 2: Other times they showed apparent throwing behavior that the researcher

472
00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:17,879
Speaker 2: said was anomalist. There was no apparent reason. Maybe an

473
00:28:17,920 --> 00:28:21,200
Speaker 2: octopus is just kind of like rippling along. Nothing's really

474
00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:23,280
Speaker 2: going on. It's not eating, it's not in its den,

475
00:28:23,600 --> 00:28:25,600
Speaker 2: nothing else is around, but it just kind of throws

476
00:28:25,640 --> 00:28:28,760
Speaker 2: something that didn't happen a lot, but occasionally it did.

477
00:28:29,400 --> 00:28:33,119
Speaker 2: And then finally, the last category they said was what

478
00:28:33,160 --> 00:28:37,399
Speaker 2: they called interactive throwing. This is when the octopus was

479
00:28:37,600 --> 00:28:41,960
Speaker 2: interacting with another octopus or in a few cases, another

480
00:28:42,080 --> 00:28:45,000
Speaker 2: animal or object such as a fish or a camera.

481
00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:48,920
Speaker 2: And these are the ones that are really interesting because

482
00:28:48,960 --> 00:28:51,720
Speaker 2: in this case, the researcher said, it really looks like

483
00:28:51,840 --> 00:28:55,320
Speaker 2: not just throwing away behavior, but throwing at behavior. It

484
00:28:55,360 --> 00:28:59,000
Speaker 2: looks like the octopuses are intentionally throwing things to try

485
00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:03,959
Speaker 2: to hit or discourage other octopuses in their vicinity. So

486
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:08,160
Speaker 2: what proportion of throws are represented by these different categories. Well,

487
00:29:08,280 --> 00:29:11,760
Speaker 2: to read from their results, quote, over half of all throws,

488
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:16,680
Speaker 2: or fifty three percent, occurred in interactive contexts, thirty six

489
00:29:16,760 --> 00:29:21,520
Speaker 2: percent in interactive, only seventeen percent in interactive mixed. And

490
00:29:21,560 --> 00:29:25,000
Speaker 2: that's where they're interacting with another octopus, but also something

491
00:29:25,040 --> 00:29:27,480
Speaker 2: else is going on, like maybe they also just finished sheeting,

492
00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:31,400
Speaker 2: or they're also cleaning out their den. Thirty two percent

493
00:29:31,440 --> 00:29:36,000
Speaker 2: occurred during den cleaning, only eight percent after eating, and

494
00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:40,520
Speaker 2: eight percent without a parent context. Oh, and this total

495
00:29:40,560 --> 00:29:43,520
Speaker 2: is more than one hundred percent due to rounding, but

496
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:47,280
Speaker 2: they say that the material throw so. And then there's

497
00:29:47,320 --> 00:29:51,480
Speaker 2: another distinction they make throw interactive throwing, where they're basically

498
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:55,080
Speaker 2: interacting with another octopus and they throw in that octopus's direction,

499
00:29:55,600 --> 00:29:57,680
Speaker 2: and then they make the distinction of, well, did the

500
00:29:57,720 --> 00:30:00,280
Speaker 2: stuff they threw actually hit the other octa to pus

501
00:30:00,440 --> 00:30:03,280
Speaker 2: on the footage they captured, and they said that the

502
00:30:03,320 --> 00:30:08,240
Speaker 2: material throne hit another octopus in seventeen cases that they documented.

503
00:30:08,720 --> 00:30:12,800
Speaker 2: In two other throws the material hit a fish and so.

504
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:16,160
Speaker 2: Co author David Shiel said speaking to the media, it

505
00:30:16,200 --> 00:30:18,760
Speaker 2: seems like there's a target and they're not throwing away,

506
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:22,680
Speaker 2: they're throwing at But it is a difficult question, like

507
00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:26,240
Speaker 2: how can you prove that they are actually intending to

508
00:30:26,280 --> 00:30:28,640
Speaker 2: hit another octopus with this stuff when they do it.

509
00:30:29,400 --> 00:30:33,720
Speaker 2: Of course, it's possible they're just accidentally or maybe inconsiderately

510
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:37,840
Speaker 2: hitting one another with these waterjet payloads while they're doing

511
00:30:37,960 --> 00:30:40,280
Speaker 2: something else. Maybe we don't know why they're doing it,

512
00:30:41,200 --> 00:30:45,400
Speaker 2: and the researchers aren't sure that these throws are intentionally targeted,

513
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:48,360
Speaker 2: but they argue that on balance, that is the more

514
00:30:48,480 --> 00:30:52,440
Speaker 2: likely interpretation, and that it possibly is some kind of

515
00:30:52,480 --> 00:30:54,840
Speaker 2: social signal, and they give a few arguments why they

516
00:30:54,840 --> 00:30:59,560
Speaker 2: think it is the more likely interpretation. So, for one thing,

517
00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:04,840
Speaker 2: you might imagine that interactive throws are targeted and social

518
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:09,800
Speaker 2: if you notice some patterns, like patterns of differences between

519
00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:14,440
Speaker 2: interactive throws versus other types of throws. And the researchers did,

520
00:31:14,480 --> 00:31:17,960
Speaker 2: in fact document some differences specifically between throws that hit

521
00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:23,760
Speaker 2: another octopus and throws that did not. One difference was

522
00:31:24,160 --> 00:31:27,440
Speaker 2: which arms are the octopus using. I thought this was

523
00:31:27,960 --> 00:31:30,920
Speaker 2: really interesting because it wasn't exactly what I would have expected.

524
00:31:31,640 --> 00:31:34,479
Speaker 2: But here's what they say. Okay, they say a total

525
00:31:34,520 --> 00:31:37,800
Speaker 2: of fourteen throws out of ninety eight that could be

526
00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:42,880
Speaker 2: assessed as anomalous arm throws, and these would be throws

527
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:45,920
Speaker 2: using one of the side arms instead of just the

528
00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:50,360
Speaker 2: two front arms. They say, quote, anomalous arm throws were

529
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:53,920
Speaker 2: more likely to hit other octopuses than L one R

530
00:31:54,040 --> 00:31:56,520
Speaker 2: one throws, and L one and R one are the

531
00:31:56,560 --> 00:31:58,960
Speaker 2: two frontal arms. So it seems like if you're just

532
00:31:59,080 --> 00:32:01,320
Speaker 2: cleaning out your den, there just kind of throwing stuff

533
00:32:01,360 --> 00:32:05,480
Speaker 2: wherever you use the front two arms, but way more

534
00:32:05,520 --> 00:32:08,320
Speaker 2: often if an octopus throws something and it hits a

535
00:32:08,320 --> 00:32:12,120
Speaker 2: different octopus, they're using their side arms. Isn't that kind

536
00:32:12,120 --> 00:32:12,680
Speaker 2: of strange?

537
00:32:13,200 --> 00:32:13,320
Speaker 1: Hm?

538
00:32:14,240 --> 00:32:16,680
Speaker 2: And they found that the side arm throws were less

539
00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:20,800
Speaker 2: common overall, but more common if the material hit another octopus.

540
00:32:20,840 --> 00:32:24,240
Speaker 2: So something about this pattern of arm choice could indicate

541
00:32:24,360 --> 00:32:28,320
Speaker 2: maybe a type of aiming behavior with hostile intentions. It's

542
00:32:28,320 --> 00:32:31,160
Speaker 2: hard to know for sure, but that is an interesting difference.

543
00:32:31,800 --> 00:32:34,640
Speaker 2: They also write quote in three cases of hits, a

544
00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:39,280
Speaker 2: thrower also altered their body orientation towards another octopus, but

545
00:32:39,360 --> 00:32:41,840
Speaker 2: these movements were very slight, and the effects of arm

546
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:46,400
Speaker 2: choice other than L one R one were more marked. Okay,

547
00:32:46,440 --> 00:32:50,560
Speaker 2: so that's one difference between throws that hit other octopuses

548
00:32:50,560 --> 00:32:55,680
Speaker 2: and throws that down't. Second difference body patterns and throw vicar.

549
00:32:56,440 --> 00:33:00,600
Speaker 2: These octopuses, as we mentioned earlier, can change their external appearance,

550
00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:03,200
Speaker 2: and in fact, they might even change their external appearance

551
00:33:03,280 --> 00:33:07,160
Speaker 2: in order to signal to other octopuses, maybe to help

552
00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:12,760
Speaker 2: avoid aggressive encounters. And remember before, when an octopus displayed

553
00:33:12,760 --> 00:33:16,480
Speaker 2: a uniform dark coloration, that was usually a sign that

554
00:33:16,520 --> 00:33:20,920
Speaker 2: they were displaying kind of like dominant aggressive behavior, whereas

555
00:33:20,960 --> 00:33:24,400
Speaker 2: maybe like turning paler might indicate that they were willing

556
00:33:24,440 --> 00:33:28,200
Speaker 2: to back away from a fight. The authors here found

557
00:33:28,240 --> 00:33:33,200
Speaker 2: that throws that hit another octopus more often took place

558
00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:37,840
Speaker 2: when the thrower was displaying a uniform and especially uniform

559
00:33:38,040 --> 00:33:39,200
Speaker 2: dark body color.

560
00:33:39,960 --> 00:33:40,440
Speaker 1: Quote.

561
00:33:40,640 --> 00:33:44,280
Speaker 2: We noted that throws by octopuses displaying uniform body patterns,

562
00:33:44,360 --> 00:33:50,160
Speaker 2: especially uniform dark patterns, were more often thrown with high vigor. Further,

563
00:33:50,320 --> 00:33:54,640
Speaker 2: throws by octopuses displaying uniform body patterns also hit other

564
00:33:54,680 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 2: octopuses significantly more more often than those in other body patterns.

565
00:34:00,520 --> 00:34:03,040
Speaker 2: And then also they say, in addition, high vigor throws

566
00:34:03,200 --> 00:34:07,640
Speaker 2: more frequently hit another octopus. However, with that last point,

567
00:34:07,720 --> 00:34:09,759
Speaker 2: they want to clarify, and I think this is good

568
00:34:09,760 --> 00:34:13,440
Speaker 2: to point out. High vigor throws, of course, are because

569
00:34:13,480 --> 00:34:16,319
Speaker 2: they're higher vigor, meaning thrown harder, They go longer, and

570
00:34:16,320 --> 00:34:19,400
Speaker 2: they have a wider range, which could explain more frequent

571
00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:22,440
Speaker 2: hits even if they're not deliberately targeting somebody. Like a

572
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:26,399
Speaker 2: random throw that goes farther and spreads farther is more

573
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:29,760
Speaker 2: likely to hit something randomly than one that doesn't. Another

574
00:34:29,800 --> 00:34:34,880
Speaker 2: thing they noticed material chosen. When octopuses through something that

575
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:37,640
Speaker 2: hit another octopus, it was way more likely to be

576
00:34:37,920 --> 00:34:42,879
Speaker 2: silt as opposed to the other materials, which appeared more

577
00:34:42,920 --> 00:34:45,720
Speaker 2: often in other context. So maybe an octopus is eating

578
00:34:45,800 --> 00:34:47,799
Speaker 2: or cleaning its din, it's going to be more likely

579
00:34:47,840 --> 00:34:51,759
Speaker 2: to throw shells around. When an octopus gets gets into

580
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:55,560
Speaker 2: an aggressive interaction with another octopus, it seems more likely

581
00:34:55,600 --> 00:34:59,160
Speaker 2: they will throw silt at them. Back to the dirty

582
00:34:59,160 --> 00:34:59,800
Speaker 2: fighter point.

583
00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:02,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And there's something about, you know, the throwing

584
00:35:02,600 --> 00:35:04,759
Speaker 1: of the silt too that that I don't know a

585
00:35:04,800 --> 00:35:07,279
Speaker 1: lot of this is just the human perspective and all,

586
00:35:07,320 --> 00:35:10,680
Speaker 1: but I know it makes me think of of things

587
00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:15,239
Speaker 1: like another trope from films, throwing a single pebble at

588
00:35:15,239 --> 00:35:18,560
Speaker 1: a at a window pane to get somebody's attention. Oh yeah,

589
00:35:18,600 --> 00:35:20,520
Speaker 1: you know, like you know where it's You know clearly

590
00:35:20,560 --> 00:35:22,759
Speaker 1: you're not you're actually trying to harm anyone, but you

591
00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:26,080
Speaker 1: want to. You're creating a message. You're you're you're sending

592
00:35:26,120 --> 00:35:30,239
Speaker 1: a signal, and in a different way. Uh, there is

593
00:35:30,320 --> 00:35:34,400
Speaker 1: a difference between pelting somebody with sand and throwing a

594
00:35:34,520 --> 00:35:37,919
Speaker 1: rock at them. Like even in the human scenario, these

595
00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:41,480
Speaker 1: are two These are two acts with rather different messages.

596
00:35:41,520 --> 00:35:43,560
Speaker 1: If they were to happen, say at a beach between

597
00:35:43,600 --> 00:35:44,440
Speaker 1: two people.

598
00:35:44,719 --> 00:35:48,839
Speaker 2: Yes, that that's correct, So I think the material may

599
00:35:48,960 --> 00:35:51,680
Speaker 2: make a difference there, though they did say that the

600
00:35:52,120 --> 00:35:55,200
Speaker 2: difference that they found in material choice was not statistically

601
00:35:55,280 --> 00:35:58,240
Speaker 2: significant because they're dealing with the small number of samples here.

602
00:35:58,760 --> 00:36:00,439
Speaker 2: There was a difference in the numbers, but it didn't

603
00:36:00,480 --> 00:36:04,400
Speaker 2: make statistical cut. Now. One thing, they did also observe

604
00:36:04,640 --> 00:36:09,680
Speaker 2: repeat offenders and aggressive patterns. They say some particular octopuses

605
00:36:09,760 --> 00:36:14,720
Speaker 2: would repeatedly throw and strike another one again and again

606
00:36:14,880 --> 00:36:18,600
Speaker 2: and again, and this kind of repeated hit behavior would

607
00:36:18,640 --> 00:36:22,359
Speaker 2: seem to indicate a deliberate, targeted pattern more than an

608
00:36:22,400 --> 00:36:26,600
Speaker 2: accidental one. The authors also say quote hits in many

609
00:36:26,640 --> 00:36:32,520
Speaker 2: cases occurred within sequences of interactions that featured ongoing mild aggression,

610
00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:37,640
Speaker 2: including arm probes and momentary grappling. So they're saying we

611
00:36:37,680 --> 00:36:42,759
Speaker 2: saw throws that hit another octopus often win octopuses had

612
00:36:42,800 --> 00:36:44,600
Speaker 2: already been tussling.

613
00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:47,960
Speaker 1: A lot, okay, and another way of stating it, some

614
00:36:48,120 --> 00:36:49,840
Speaker 1: octopuses might just be jerks.

615
00:36:50,239 --> 00:36:54,360
Speaker 2: One last thing, they say there were defensive behaviors. The

616
00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:58,160
Speaker 2: apparent victim of the throw often reacted by either holding

617
00:36:58,360 --> 00:37:01,640
Speaker 2: arms up to block the of material flying their way,

618
00:37:02,120 --> 00:37:05,680
Speaker 2: or by ducking and dodging out of the way, And

619
00:37:05,719 --> 00:37:09,279
Speaker 2: they said sometimes octopuses who had been hit altered their

620
00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:13,640
Speaker 2: behavior in some other way by say, like pausing or

621
00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:17,560
Speaker 2: halting or redirecting their movements. And this last point I

622
00:37:17,560 --> 00:37:20,400
Speaker 2: think is really important because the authors say, you know,

623
00:37:20,560 --> 00:37:24,040
Speaker 2: even if these throws are not actually socially intended, they

624
00:37:24,080 --> 00:37:26,720
Speaker 2: do appear to have social effects, Like if they cause

625
00:37:26,840 --> 00:37:30,400
Speaker 2: redirected movement in the victim, that would seem to be

626
00:37:30,480 --> 00:37:34,359
Speaker 2: a socially relevant behavior. Even if you would I don't

627
00:37:34,400 --> 00:37:36,319
Speaker 2: know exactly what it would mean in this case though,

628
00:37:36,360 --> 00:37:39,320
Speaker 2: to say that they were not intended to be social

629
00:37:39,360 --> 00:37:42,120
Speaker 2: signals by the by the individual throwing.

630
00:37:42,760 --> 00:37:46,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so, I mean, it's it's an impossible task

631
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:48,680
Speaker 1: to try and do, to try and like put yourself

632
00:37:48,719 --> 00:37:50,879
Speaker 1: in the mind of an octopus, but you can't help.

633
00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:53,640
Speaker 1: But wonder, coming back to some of what you said earlier, like,

634
00:37:54,080 --> 00:37:59,640
Speaker 1: is it potentially indeed like a directed action where the octopus,

635
00:37:59,680 --> 00:38:03,040
Speaker 1: in it's own own octopus way, is quote unquote thinking

636
00:38:03,640 --> 00:38:05,799
Speaker 1: I don't like you, I want you to go away,

637
00:38:05,880 --> 00:38:08,400
Speaker 1: or something I will throw sand at you. Or is

638
00:38:08,440 --> 00:38:12,799
Speaker 1: it like the octopus is throwing sand while having a

639
00:38:12,800 --> 00:38:19,040
Speaker 1: certain hostility towards other octopuses or a particular octopus, and

640
00:38:19,080 --> 00:38:22,280
Speaker 1: in doing so, these things kind of aligne and maybe

641
00:38:22,840 --> 00:38:26,120
Speaker 1: there's less intention there. I don't know.

642
00:38:26,480 --> 00:38:28,319
Speaker 2: Oh no, I think that's a really good point, and

643
00:38:28,360 --> 00:38:30,360
Speaker 2: that comes up in one of I think the better

644
00:38:30,440 --> 00:38:32,880
Speaker 2: criticisms of the study that I want to get to

645
00:38:32,960 --> 00:38:35,400
Speaker 2: in just a minute. But just before I do that,

646
00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:37,040
Speaker 2: I want to mention a few other things that the

647
00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:40,719
Speaker 2: authors highlight several things they did not see, and I

648
00:38:40,760 --> 00:38:44,000
Speaker 2: think it's worth paying attention to what these are. They say,

649
00:38:44,040 --> 00:38:47,440
Speaker 2: you know what, we never saw an octopus quote return fire,

650
00:38:47,719 --> 00:38:51,520
Speaker 2: So they never saw a throw hit initiate any kind

651
00:38:51,600 --> 00:38:54,719
Speaker 2: of violent retaliation by the target. That they did see

652
00:38:54,719 --> 00:38:56,840
Speaker 2: the targets like it might make them sort of go

653
00:38:56,960 --> 00:39:09,920
Speaker 2: away or redirect their movements. They also say, and I

654
00:39:09,920 --> 00:39:13,000
Speaker 2: thought this was quite interesting, quote some throws in what

655
00:39:13,080 --> 00:39:17,400
Speaker 2: appear to be fairly intense interactions were not directed at

656
00:39:17,400 --> 00:39:21,839
Speaker 2: another octopus but into empty space. So octopuses might be

657
00:39:22,080 --> 00:39:25,600
Speaker 2: tussling pretty strongly, like they're fighting each other, but then

658
00:39:25,719 --> 00:39:30,600
Speaker 2: in the middle of that, you know, prolonged aggressive interaction,

659
00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:34,560
Speaker 2: the octopus just kind of like throws some material, but

660
00:39:34,640 --> 00:39:39,000
Speaker 2: not at another octopus just throws something. It almost invites

661
00:39:39,040 --> 00:39:41,680
Speaker 2: comparisons of just like throwing things in a huff. But

662
00:39:41,840 --> 00:39:43,879
Speaker 2: I don't know if you could say that's what's going

663
00:39:43,920 --> 00:39:45,040
Speaker 2: on with an octopus.

664
00:39:45,320 --> 00:39:48,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, you can't help but think that again

665
00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:50,760
Speaker 1: putting the human lens over everything.

666
00:39:51,200 --> 00:39:55,040
Speaker 2: But anyway to come back with some criticisms of this

667
00:39:55,160 --> 00:39:58,080
Speaker 2: type of interpretation, I was reading an article in the

668
00:39:58,160 --> 00:40:03,839
Speaker 2: Atlantic by Marina called everyone has an Octopus Opinion, And

669
00:40:04,800 --> 00:40:08,040
Speaker 2: this article collects some arguments that there might be less

670
00:40:08,040 --> 00:40:10,280
Speaker 2: than meets the eye when it comes to the octopus

671
00:40:10,320 --> 00:40:15,160
Speaker 2: throwing footage and saying that the interpretation of socially targeted

672
00:40:15,280 --> 00:40:19,959
Speaker 2: throwing might just simple simply be anthropomorphization. So a few

673
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:22,879
Speaker 2: things that are collected in this article. One is that

674
00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:28,000
Speaker 2: corn documents a dissenting opinion from an evolutionary biologist at

675
00:40:28,320 --> 00:40:33,400
Speaker 2: San Francisco State University named Robin Crook, who questioned whether

676
00:40:33,480 --> 00:40:36,799
Speaker 2: this behavior really counts as quote throwing because of the

677
00:40:36,840 --> 00:40:41,120
Speaker 2: physical processes involved, noting, again, like we talked about earlier,

678
00:40:41,160 --> 00:40:44,839
Speaker 2: that while octopuses will grasp things and pass them around

679
00:40:44,880 --> 00:40:47,560
Speaker 2: with their arms, they don't use their arms to throw

680
00:40:47,600 --> 00:40:52,040
Speaker 2: the way we do. Instead, they use this siphon blasting maneuver,

681
00:40:52,600 --> 00:40:56,759
Speaker 2: which to Crook does not constitute throwing. I don't know

682
00:40:56,800 --> 00:40:59,320
Speaker 2: if I would really like make this distinction. It seems

683
00:40:59,320 --> 00:41:01,400
Speaker 2: to me like the important part of throwing is like

684
00:41:01,440 --> 00:41:06,120
Speaker 2: the intentional ballistic projection behavior of objects from the environment,

685
00:41:06,239 --> 00:41:09,200
Speaker 2: not so much like the muscle movements you use to

686
00:41:09,239 --> 00:41:10,799
Speaker 2: do that. But I don't know what you think.

687
00:41:11,040 --> 00:41:12,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean a lot of it's just going to

688
00:41:12,160 --> 00:41:16,400
Speaker 1: come down to body type, right, and what kind of

689
00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:21,879
Speaker 1: tools you have to send stuff fly in at another creature. Really,

690
00:41:21,960 --> 00:41:23,759
Speaker 1: I keep coming back to children and all of this.

691
00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:26,680
Speaker 1: I can't can't wait for you to take everything in

692
00:41:26,719 --> 00:41:30,280
Speaker 1: this episode with you when you start taking your child

693
00:41:30,280 --> 00:41:37,120
Speaker 1: to the beach, because yeah, a human child is certainly

694
00:41:37,160 --> 00:41:39,719
Speaker 1: an education in all the ways that you can You

695
00:41:39,760 --> 00:41:42,640
Speaker 1: can send sand flying in the wrong directions as well

696
00:41:42,640 --> 00:41:45,759
Speaker 1: as various other objects. They can kick it, they can

697
00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:50,200
Speaker 1: throw it, they can shake it from the towels. It's wonderful.

698
00:41:50,560 --> 00:41:53,120
Speaker 2: I have so much magic of that kind of look

699
00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:57,399
Speaker 2: forward to. But no so so, Crook says. Another thing

700
00:41:57,480 --> 00:41:59,960
Speaker 2: is that you know, like we were talking about, there,

701
00:42:00,160 --> 00:42:03,440
Speaker 2: there are other contexts in which octopuses clearly show this

702
00:42:03,560 --> 00:42:06,640
Speaker 2: kind of like siphon blasting behavior such as cleaning up

703
00:42:06,640 --> 00:42:08,840
Speaker 2: their dens after a big meal, you know, blasting a

704
00:42:08,880 --> 00:42:12,080
Speaker 2: bunch of mollusk shells out, and Kirk argues that maybe

705
00:42:12,080 --> 00:42:14,680
Speaker 2: that's all that's happening in the footage that's examined in

706
00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:18,239
Speaker 2: this paper. Sometimes they're just blasting their dens out or

707
00:42:18,680 --> 00:42:21,719
Speaker 2: doing a behavior that they do when they blast their

708
00:42:21,760 --> 00:42:25,600
Speaker 2: dens out and hitting other octopuses by accident. In the

709
00:42:25,600 --> 00:42:29,440
Speaker 2: total footage, this article claims that only seventeen percent of

710
00:42:29,520 --> 00:42:34,000
Speaker 2: the throws actually hit another octopus, So a majority of

711
00:42:34,000 --> 00:42:36,960
Speaker 2: what we see either way is just throwing away behavior,

712
00:42:37,000 --> 00:42:40,960
Speaker 2: not throwing at. The question is whether this minority of

713
00:42:41,160 --> 00:42:44,759
Speaker 2: cases where it was interactive throwing, and especially the ones

714
00:42:44,800 --> 00:42:47,560
Speaker 2: where it looks like interactive throwing and it actually hit

715
00:42:47,640 --> 00:42:50,880
Speaker 2: the other animal, those are the minority we're looking at.

716
00:42:50,920 --> 00:42:52,880
Speaker 2: That's just seventeen percent of all the throws.

717
00:42:53,560 --> 00:42:57,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I again come back to something you

718
00:42:57,120 --> 00:43:01,400
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier about again, the octopus is generally a solitary creature,

719
00:43:01,440 --> 00:43:04,240
Speaker 1: and this is a scenario in which they are living

720
00:43:04,600 --> 00:43:08,200
Speaker 1: in close proximity to one another due to the restraints

721
00:43:08,239 --> 00:43:11,920
Speaker 1: of the environment itself. So you could just simply look

722
00:43:11,960 --> 00:43:17,200
Speaker 1: at it, like, look, these octopuses are violent slobs, and

723
00:43:17,840 --> 00:43:20,920
Speaker 1: normally they're on their own being violent slabs, but now

724
00:43:20,960 --> 00:43:24,480
Speaker 1: they're forced to live together, and this is what happens

725
00:43:24,480 --> 00:43:27,399
Speaker 1: when octopuses, I don't know, stop being polite and start

726
00:43:27,400 --> 00:43:27,919
Speaker 1: getting real.

727
00:43:30,719 --> 00:43:33,200
Speaker 2: Now, there are several things raised in this article, but

728
00:43:33,280 --> 00:43:35,279
Speaker 2: one I thought was actually a pretty good point to

729
00:43:35,320 --> 00:43:38,440
Speaker 2: make was that even if the octopuses are trying to

730
00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:41,319
Speaker 2: hit one another with the throwing, so maybe you can say,

731
00:43:41,360 --> 00:43:43,520
Speaker 2: like half of the equation is true. Maybe it is

732
00:43:43,640 --> 00:43:47,359
Speaker 2: targeted throwing. They are throwing at the other octopus. But

733
00:43:47,400 --> 00:43:49,360
Speaker 2: at the same time you could say it might still

734
00:43:49,400 --> 00:43:54,360
Speaker 2: not be social octopus signaling exactly because in the words

735
00:43:54,360 --> 00:43:59,359
Speaker 2: of Piero Amodio, a biologist who has specialized in octopuses

736
00:43:59,680 --> 00:44:04,200
Speaker 2: Aton Dorn Zoological Station in Italy, it may be quote

737
00:44:04,520 --> 00:44:08,960
Speaker 2: used more broadly towards annoying or threatening stimuli. So maybe

738
00:44:08,960 --> 00:44:12,080
Speaker 2: it's not a thing about octopuses communicating with octopuses, but

739
00:44:12,160 --> 00:44:14,719
Speaker 2: it's just like something is bothering them, so they throw

740
00:44:14,920 --> 00:44:18,759
Speaker 2: they just squirt object, they squirt material at it. And

741
00:44:18,960 --> 00:44:22,400
Speaker 2: evidence for this would include octopuses were also observed in

742
00:44:22,440 --> 00:44:25,480
Speaker 2: a couple of instances in the study throwing debris at

743
00:44:25,600 --> 00:44:30,320
Speaker 2: fish and at a camera emplacement in a couple of cases,

744
00:44:30,719 --> 00:44:34,759
Speaker 2: so it could be less intraspecific social signaling and more like,

745
00:44:35,280 --> 00:44:37,000
Speaker 2: I don't know what that is, I don't like that

746
00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:39,640
Speaker 2: object in my space. Just squirt some dirt at it

747
00:44:40,239 --> 00:44:43,000
Speaker 2: for this objection, I think fair enough. Like in that case,

748
00:44:43,640 --> 00:44:46,360
Speaker 2: I think it would definitely count as directed throwing. It

749
00:44:46,400 --> 00:44:49,560
Speaker 2: would be throwing at rather than throwing away. But this

750
00:44:49,680 --> 00:44:53,720
Speaker 2: might limit what kinds of interpretations we could make about

751
00:44:53,719 --> 00:44:59,680
Speaker 2: the relationships between gloomy octopuses specifically. The article makes cites

752
00:44:59,719 --> 00:45:02,440
Speaker 2: one line argument that I thought was pretty interesting, and

753
00:45:02,520 --> 00:45:06,840
Speaker 2: this comes from Christian Nauroth, who is a researcher on

754
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:10,720
Speaker 2: the behavior of goats at the Research Institute for Farm

755
00:45:10,800 --> 00:45:15,040
Speaker 2: Animal Biology in Germany. And the point that Naarrath makes

756
00:45:15,080 --> 00:45:18,719
Speaker 2: here talking about goats is that, yeah, even goats have

757
00:45:18,800 --> 00:45:22,040
Speaker 2: lots of mysteries about them. Quote, they sneeze when they're

758
00:45:22,080 --> 00:45:25,799
Speaker 2: spooked or frustrated, and there is actually nothing on how

759
00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:28,680
Speaker 2: often goats show this behavior, how often they use it

760
00:45:28,920 --> 00:45:32,160
Speaker 2: in which contexts they use it. And I thought that

761
00:45:32,280 --> 00:45:36,359
Speaker 2: was really interesting because it, of course is especially hard

762
00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:39,920
Speaker 2: to figure out the motivation for animal behavior when you're

763
00:45:39,960 --> 00:45:42,440
Speaker 2: studying them in the wild as opposed to in the lab.

764
00:45:42,520 --> 00:45:45,719
Speaker 2: Like in the lab, you can strictly limit variables to

765
00:45:45,760 --> 00:45:48,840
Speaker 2: some degree, but in the natural environment there might be

766
00:45:49,000 --> 00:45:52,279
Speaker 2: thousands of variables to disentangle, and you might not even

767
00:45:52,400 --> 00:45:55,560
Speaker 2: recognize what some of them are. And the specific example

768
00:45:55,600 --> 00:45:59,440
Speaker 2: about Okay, so goats sometimes sneeze when they're spooked, but like,

769
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:02,240
Speaker 2: why do they do that? What exactly are they trying

770
00:46:02,280 --> 00:46:05,600
Speaker 2: to do with the sneezing. Is it a directed behavior

771
00:46:05,760 --> 00:46:08,760
Speaker 2: or just a kind of tick or what? It reminds

772
00:46:08,800 --> 00:46:13,760
Speaker 2: me of our recent discussion on the Galapagos marine iguana.

773
00:46:13,920 --> 00:46:17,880
Speaker 2: Do they sort snort salt out of their salt glands

774
00:46:18,040 --> 00:46:21,319
Speaker 2: at an attacker defensively, like when something is approaching them,

775
00:46:21,440 --> 00:46:24,840
Speaker 2: when a Charles Darwin is approaching them, as Charles Darwin

776
00:46:24,920 --> 00:46:29,200
Speaker 2: thought he observed. Or is the salt snorting not actually

777
00:46:29,200 --> 00:46:33,560
Speaker 2: correlated with defensive behavior? Is it not actually motivated by

778
00:46:33,600 --> 00:46:37,200
Speaker 2: defensive considerations at all? It's hard to tell.

779
00:46:37,920 --> 00:46:40,680
Speaker 1: Yeah. Again, it is so hard to step outside of

780
00:46:40,719 --> 00:46:46,160
Speaker 1: the of the human lens here when trying to imagine

781
00:46:46,160 --> 00:46:49,239
Speaker 1: what any of these creatures are doing. Because some of

782
00:46:49,280 --> 00:46:52,560
Speaker 1: these things like we want to interpret them and think

783
00:46:52,560 --> 00:46:59,200
Speaker 1: about them as being deliberate actions as opposed to, say,

784
00:46:59,480 --> 00:47:05,320
Speaker 1: in the human scenario, sort of incidental signalings of hostility

785
00:47:05,360 --> 00:47:09,080
Speaker 1: that we might have, Like someone can look hostile on

786
00:47:09,120 --> 00:47:12,799
Speaker 1: say a bus, without actively thinking like, oh, I'm going

787
00:47:12,840 --> 00:47:15,080
Speaker 1: to show everybody on this bus how I feel about them.

788
00:47:15,320 --> 00:47:18,560
Speaker 1: Check out my hostility. Don't come near me or violence

789
00:47:18,600 --> 00:47:22,080
Speaker 1: happens next, like you could. That person could just genuinely

790
00:47:22,120 --> 00:47:24,560
Speaker 1: be and say a bad mood or be thinking about

791
00:47:24,560 --> 00:47:28,359
Speaker 1: something that's bothering them, and their their posture, the way

792
00:47:28,360 --> 00:47:31,439
Speaker 1: they their look, their expression on their face could take

793
00:47:31,480 --> 00:47:33,640
Speaker 1: on a hostile energy that would then be picked up

794
00:47:33,680 --> 00:47:34,600
Speaker 1: on by other people.

795
00:47:35,080 --> 00:47:38,400
Speaker 2: And that and that kind of ambiguity exists even within

796
00:47:38,600 --> 00:47:43,239
Speaker 2: our very finely tuned ability to suss out the motivations

797
00:47:43,239 --> 00:47:46,160
Speaker 2: of other humans. These are cron specifics. We're right in

798
00:47:46,200 --> 00:47:48,600
Speaker 2: that human meal you you know, we're used to that

799
00:47:49,200 --> 00:47:51,920
Speaker 2: when looking at another species. I mean, it's like several

800
00:47:52,040 --> 00:47:55,240
Speaker 2: orders of magnitude more difficult to figure things out.

801
00:47:55,400 --> 00:47:57,480
Speaker 1: Right, right, Because again, that same dude on the bus

802
00:47:57,480 --> 00:48:00,879
Speaker 1: that you're thinking looks hostile, he could just be thinking

803
00:48:00,880 --> 00:48:03,719
Speaker 1: about a really cool episode of some TV show that

804
00:48:03,719 --> 00:48:06,240
Speaker 1: he watched, you know, and that's just all you because

805
00:48:06,239 --> 00:48:08,640
Speaker 1: you think, oh, somebody who looks weird on a bus

806
00:48:08,719 --> 00:48:12,680
Speaker 1: must have hostile intentions. They must have something negative going on,

807
00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:15,000
Speaker 1: and they don't just have an intense look because they're

808
00:48:15,000 --> 00:48:18,440
Speaker 1: trying to figure out the plot of I don't know,

809
00:48:18,520 --> 00:48:19,359
Speaker 1: some Netflix show.

810
00:48:19,960 --> 00:48:22,120
Speaker 2: Now, I think when it comes to the ambiguity behind

811
00:48:22,200 --> 00:48:25,440
Speaker 2: animal behaviors, there might be other kinds of considerations that

812
00:48:25,480 --> 00:48:28,719
Speaker 2: would come in, Like, Okay, is the marine iguana even

813
00:48:28,719 --> 00:48:32,320
Speaker 2: if you could show, wow, it does you know, snort

814
00:48:32,520 --> 00:48:34,960
Speaker 2: salt out of its salt glands more often when a

815
00:48:35,040 --> 00:48:37,920
Speaker 2: human is approaching it, That would show a correlation with

816
00:48:37,960 --> 00:48:40,480
Speaker 2: the proximity of a larger land animal. But it wouldn't.

817
00:48:41,360 --> 00:48:43,759
Speaker 2: It wouldn't still wouldn't show it was defensive in some way.

818
00:48:43,800 --> 00:48:47,040
Speaker 2: I mean, maybe it's snorting like that because it's trying

819
00:48:47,080 --> 00:48:50,280
Speaker 2: to I don't know, like clear some kind of gland

820
00:48:50,320 --> 00:48:52,959
Speaker 2: blockage in case it needs to move quickly or something

821
00:48:53,000 --> 00:48:54,359
Speaker 2: like that. Maybe that's part of the kind of fight

822
00:48:54,440 --> 00:49:00,760
Speaker 2: or flight physiological internal regulation of the iguana's body. Who knows,

823
00:49:00,960 --> 00:49:03,840
Speaker 2: I'm just speculating there, But you could imagine other things

824
00:49:03,880 --> 00:49:08,040
Speaker 2: for this octopus throwing behavior. Maybe the throwing is part

825
00:49:08,160 --> 00:49:12,040
Speaker 2: of something that's going on internally with the octopus that

826
00:49:12,200 --> 00:49:16,880
Speaker 2: is related to aggressive interactions with other octopuses, but is

827
00:49:16,960 --> 00:49:20,319
Speaker 2: not about hitting them with the objects, though it's hard

828
00:49:20,320 --> 00:49:24,840
Speaker 2: to figure out what that other purpose would be. Then again,

829
00:49:24,880 --> 00:49:26,760
Speaker 2: maybe it is just about hitting them with the salt.

830
00:49:26,760 --> 00:49:29,440
Speaker 2: I mean, that seems like a perfectly plausible explanation to me.

831
00:49:30,160 --> 00:49:34,560
Speaker 1: Either way. A fascinating look here, another fascinating consideration of

832
00:49:34,600 --> 00:49:37,480
Speaker 1: the world of the octopus. And this episode is also

833
00:49:37,600 --> 00:49:39,960
Speaker 1: kind of a stealth goat episode too, since we got

834
00:49:39,960 --> 00:49:42,399
Speaker 1: to get in a little bit of goat pondering here

835
00:49:42,440 --> 00:49:42,920
Speaker 1: at the end.

836
00:49:43,360 --> 00:49:45,520
Speaker 2: I like that. But we're going to be back with

837
00:49:45,680 --> 00:49:49,560
Speaker 2: more interesting examples of throwing behavior and animals, so these

838
00:49:49,600 --> 00:49:50,800
Speaker 2: questions will continue.

839
00:49:51,480 --> 00:49:53,680
Speaker 1: That's right, so be sure to join us for the

840
00:49:53,680 --> 00:49:57,399
Speaker 1: next one. Let's just remind everybody that's Stuff to Blow

841
00:49:57,440 --> 00:49:59,440
Speaker 1: Your Mind. It publishes in the Stuff to Blow Your

842
00:49:59,480 --> 00:50:04,120
Speaker 1: Mind podcast feed with our core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

843
00:50:04,719 --> 00:50:07,560
Speaker 1: On Wednesdays we do a short form artifact or monster

844
00:50:07,600 --> 00:50:09,880
Speaker 1: fact episode. On Mondays we do listener mail, and on

845
00:50:09,920 --> 00:50:12,319
Speaker 1: Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to just talk

846
00:50:12,320 --> 00:50:13,840
Speaker 1: about a weird film.

847
00:50:14,040 --> 00:50:18,600
Speaker 2: Huge thanks to our audio producer Max Williams. If you

848
00:50:18,640 --> 00:50:20,600
Speaker 2: would like to get in touch with us with feedback

849
00:50:20,640 --> 00:50:22,880
Speaker 2: on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic

850
00:50:22,920 --> 00:50:25,200
Speaker 2: for the future, or just to say hello, you can

851
00:50:25,239 --> 00:50:28,000
Speaker 2: email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind

852
00:50:28,200 --> 00:50:36,719
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853
00:50:37,160 --> 00:50:40,080
Speaker 3: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

854
00:50:40,160 --> 00:50:42,959
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855
00:50:43,120 --> 00:50:45,840
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856
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