WEBVTT - The Mind of the Kraken 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:14.000 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:16.200 My name is Robert lamp and I'm Julie Douglas. You 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:20.720 know Julie. Recently, we we're discussing something on here. I 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:23.400 think it was something dolphin related, and we ended up 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:28.480 talking a little bit about the ideosaurus, which do you 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:32.560 remember I I refer to these as fright dolphins because 0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:36.360 they kind of look like nightmares dolphin's very sharp rows 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:39.200 of teeth. Right. Yeah, yeah, they're a long extinct now, 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:41.440 but but they're they're interest because they show up in 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:47.280 the fossil record a lot, and and they're like bus size, big, 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:50.600 big creatures. And uh, it was after the podcast was 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:52.320 over I started looking at these guys again and I 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:55.600 happened upon a really fascinating news story that came out 0:00:56.120 --> 0:00:58.040 about a year ago. And a number of you've probably 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:02.520 already heard this, but uh, you had a man by 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:06.880 the name of Mark mcminimon, who is a paleontologist at 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:11.800 Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mansachusetts, and he was 0:01:11.840 --> 0:01:14.679 speaking at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:19.280 America in Minneapolis, and he was talking specifically about a 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:24.440 site in Las Vegas in the Nevada's Berlin Ittheosaur State Park, 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:27.520 which two hundred million years ago was in a desert 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:29.920 but was a sea floor. So you have all these 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:34.440 really cool fossils, and particularly you have I Thesaurus fossils, 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:37.320 and you have this one area though that is really 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:43.240 perplexed um scientists for a while, where you have remains 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:48.080 of nine different forty five ft Athosaurus um. Back in 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:50.920 the fifties, there was this theory that the that due 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:52.600 to their position, we think they might have died in 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:55.640 shallow water and this was actually a tile flat um 0:01:56.240 --> 0:01:59.640 or due to accident old um you know, toxic plankton 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:03.040 looming in the area. But recently there's been a rock 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:06.600 evidence to suggest this these bodies were actually much deeper 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:12.520 underwater than previously thought. So it read mcmentimun to come 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:15.799 up with a very fascinating theory, I mean not just fastening, 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:18.279 just a mind blowing theory and kind of a controversial 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:22.560 theory that we're still still waiting to for for the 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:25.600 rest of the scientific community to officially chime in on. Well, 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:29.280 these fossils had patterns that resemble suckers on a tentacle, 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:32.880 right right, and that was the big mystery. And so 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:38.520 mcmentimun came up with this idea that this crack and 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:43.080 like creature nearly one ft long or thirty meters long, 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:48.480 drowned or broke the neck of the thesaurus and then 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:52.280 just like took them down to his layer. Yes, and 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:56.560 then and then there are two additional layers of interest here. Okay, octopi, 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:01.919 as we'll discussing this podcast another cephal occupied especially are 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:06.519 rather smart creatures. They actually are capable of playing with things. 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:08.600 They get bored and they take things apart, and they 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:11.480 scrunch things up and they uh they can't keep their 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:16.600 hands still, I mean they're tentacles still rather so, uh So, 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:20.920 the argument here is that this ancient cephalopod giant that 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:25.440 dined on the sars in the deep, that that to 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:28.760 hear she also would play with his or her food. 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:32.640 And then there's this added layer that mcmanimum adds to 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:36.600 this where he suggests that these creatures might have actually 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:39.840 that the crack and may have actually formed these dead 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:44.280 ichthusars into the shape of a tentacle that they may 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:48.480 have been playing with their bodies actually created art the 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:54.360 first art like an artistic interpretation of itself, which is uh, 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:57.000 which which is again controversial theory here. But it's just 0:03:57.120 --> 0:03:59.080 it's really mind blowing, and it just felt like we 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:01.440 had to mention. Well, I love the idea of it 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:04.280 because I immediately think the most scientific thing I can 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:06.680 think of, which is of course Clash of the Titans. 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:10.280 And I think about, you know, the cracking and being 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:14.120 released from its under original or or the original of course, 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:18.520 which granted that that creature well awesome wasn't like an 0:04:18.760 --> 0:04:24.240 actual squid it was, and yeah, yeah, hey, I was 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:26.599 sort of disappointing when it actually did emerge. Yeah, but 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:29.520 it does. It brings to mind creatures like that, the 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:33.039 cracking of myth. It brings to mind Cthulhu. Uh. And 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:35.800 it's intelligent, god like squid in the darkness. And just 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:38.200 the idea that in an age, and in a in 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:42.240 an age with so beyond human experience and in a 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:45.640 place so beyond human experience, that you could have this 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:50.800 intellect capable of of taking these grizzly remains and wrenching 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:54.520 them into its own shape. You know, it's just a well, 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:57.080 and I think the reason why you can't help it 0:04:57.080 --> 0:05:03.080 get caught up in this explanation as radical and it's right. 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:05.680 Yet what you're doing is you're you're marrying the brains 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:09.839 that we know about cephalopods with braun to come up 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:13.320 with this idea of them sculpting underwater. Um. But let's 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:15.800 talk about the fact that that there's some criticism obviously 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:22.640 that you know about this UM Yeah, yessing. Well, for 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:27.239 Sartis mcmanimum, he's he's still standing by what he said 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:32.240 and he's working on like official um official studies regarding 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:35.560 this theory. So so in his defense, he hasn't really 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:38.080 had the chance to to really come out full force 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:40.960 with his findings in his theory. He's just he's just 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:44.480 roughly alluded to it at this conference and said I'll 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:47.080 get back to you when I have these finished, and 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:50.360 everyone waits with debated breath. But the critics have already 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:54.160 pointed out that, well, that's a pretty imaginative explanation for 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:56.920 what we're seeing here, and there are other explanations that 0:05:56.960 --> 0:06:02.680 don't involve intelligent cephalopod artist in the triastic age. Yeah, 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:04.720 there was there was one person who said that the 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:08.360 hypothesis was a lot, you know, looking at these etchings 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:11.080 that The hypothesis is a lot like looking at clouds 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:13.840 and being able to see what you desire, that this 0:06:14.480 --> 0:06:17.200 artifact isn't there, This specimen isn't really that well preserved 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:21.960 in the first place. So there's that. UM. Then there is, 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:24.760 of course the idea that there's no direct evidence of 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:29.680 really large cephalopods at that size um And Glenn Stores, 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:33.600 curator of vertebrate paleontology at Cincinnati Museum Center, told Live 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:37.760 Science that circumstantial evidence is not enough. Totally agree with that. Yeah, 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:39.560 And what migmonimum is really gonna want to have here 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:42.160 is he needs to produce a beak or fossil evidence 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:46.400 of the beak because there because theoretically there could have 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:49.120 been crackings everywhere back then they could have just been 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:51.320 ruling the roofs, but there would have been so few 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:54.120 of them, and they're mostly soft material. And as we've 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:58.800 discussed before, fossilization is not a guaranteed process. It's more 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:01.160 of the exception to the rule that we actually see 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:03.800 fossil evidence of a creature that once lived. Now, I 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:06.200 will play Devil's advocate here and I will mention the 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:09.120 book called krack And by Wendy Williams that that you 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:13.559 lent me and she does talk about this idea of um, 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:17.600 cephalopods is is very mysterious creatures that wore for a 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:21.600 long time in the category of cryptozoology. She says that 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:24.120 even up until like I think the eighteen seventies, they 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:27.600 had a specimen. Uh, but it was until the eighteen 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:32.240 nineties when when the specimen was you know, wildly widely 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:34.520 then vetted, that people began to say, this is a 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:37.360 real thing. So of course you have to produce the 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:39.760 evidence in order to get there. Um. But I did 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:41.920 want to play Devil's advocate a bit to say that 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:45.200 there's there's still you know, this idea that a giant 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:48.760 cephalopod could have existed a long one. It's kind of 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:52.080 a wild theory, but wild theories, like dreams, sometimes come true. 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:56.440 Oh it was beautiful. Um. So okay, we're gonna talk 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:59.760 obviously a lot about cephalopods today because they are fascinating 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:03.680 in because their brains are just a wonder um. In 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:07.640 fact um, you know, the brain of the cephalopod has 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:11.440 really advanced our understanding of ourselves right, our our own 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:15.960 neuroscientists can definitely give a nod to cephalopods um and 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:20.120 even like a gerontology that the study of aging, so 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:25.200 the brain of the cephalopod. It's it's interesting because cephalopods 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:27.840 are really not that far removed from saying you're you're 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:31.040 common gardens slug. But we don't really look to the 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:34.120 garden slug for any kind of staggering intellect. It's a 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:38.320 pretty simple creature and pretty disgusting um that really shouldn't 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:41.679 exist at all. Whereas the cephalopods their jobs, what is 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:44.280 their job? They're like turning up the dirt they're they're making, 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:48.199 they're helping it to be more nutrient rich. Okay, well, disclaimer, 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:50.720 I kind of have a thing against garden slugs. Snails 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:53.880 are fine, and then cephalopods are amazing, even though they're 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:57.079 they're they're all basically buddies and probably email each other 0:08:57.080 --> 0:09:00.000 on the weekends. And uh, in the in the cephalopods 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:01.480 of like, hey, sorry, dude, I don't know why I 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:04.760 lamb is such a jerk about climbing on things to 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:08.040 climbing up the domain. But um, like once one gotten 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:10.439 the sink and I almost threw up it was disgusting, 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:16.640 but not a cephalopod. Yeah, so yeah, please don't nail 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:19.360 me slugs people, But but the brain of a cephalopod 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:23.280 is pretty amazing because while compared to the human brain, 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:25.319 it's not really that impressive and it's not that big, 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:30.880 but for an invertebrate and then certainly for for a mosque, 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:34.280 these are amazing brains that they're packing. Also, you have 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:36.840 to keep in mind cephalopods were generally talking about creatures 0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:40.200 that live only one to two years, and but they're 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:44.520 still there's still have an incredible brain activity going on well, 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:46.760 and that one to two years is key in studying 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:50.840 aging because you can see it in real time right there. Um. 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:55.240 This is from Science Magazines article tackling brain evolution fall 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:59.600 eight arms short of Martians showing up and offering themselves 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:03.000 up to science, cephalopods are the only example outside of vertebrates, 0:10:03.080 --> 0:10:06.120 of how to build a complex, clever brain, says neuroscientists 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:09.480 Cliff rag Cell of the University of Chicago and Illinois. 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:12.560 For that reason, rag Seal says, these creatures have much 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:15.840 to teach us about brain evolution. So just how impressive 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:19.679 is the cephalopod brain? Um? Okay, so yeah, some some 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:23.120 general modern cephalopod stats here. Um, they do have the 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:25.800 most complex brains of any invertebrates. An octopus brain has 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:28.160 fifty to seventy five lobes and at least as many 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:31.760 neurons about one million as a mouse brain, and that 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:34.880 is not taking into the account the smaller brains in 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:39.800 each arm, the still smaller brains called ganglia technically associated 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:45.520 with each sucker. Cephalopods like octopus um or octopi think 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:48.640 we the the what do we decide on octopi as 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:55.679 the plural? Sure, cephalopods like octopi, Uh, they're unique, and 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:58.360 that all these ganglias have condensed, that they form a 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:01.679 centralized brain. And the other thing that's unique is there 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:04.000 are two areas of the brain that have developed that 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:07.720 are specialized for memory storage. And we we see this 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:11.600 even in nautilus. But that's jumping ahead a bit. Um. 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:14.680 So their brains are larger and more condensed, and they 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:18.440 also have an area dedicated to learning. Um. But here's 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:20.959 the coolest thing. There are more neurons and the tentacles 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:23.160 than in the central brains with the ability to make 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:26.800 really lightning fast decisions, right they have to. I mean, 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:29.040 that's really where you get get down to the some 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:32.160 of the reasoning here um specifically with the octopus. Uh 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:34.559 going on and moving into the octopus section of the 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:38.320 podcast here, I guess um. The theory is that since 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:41.920 the octopus has to live in oftentimes like a tropical 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:45.520 coral leaf environment, they're in a very complex environment. These 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:47.360 are this is the these are the streets of like 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:50.400 nineteen seventies in New York. These are this is the jungle, 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:52.960 this is the you know, this is the warriors. And 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:55.360 they have to have a lot of street smarts to survive. 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:57.800 So this is kind of like animal streets smarts. They 0:11:57.800 --> 0:11:59.640 have to they have to be dexterious, they have to 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:01.800 be mass there's a disguise. They have to be stealthy, 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:04.400 they have to be killers. They have to be seductive, 0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:09.880 well a little seductive. Well there's some seductive Um when 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:12.520 you get into the various coloration and hunting schemes, I 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:14.880 guess you can. You can make that argument. But but 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:16.720 they have to they have to to really be on 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:19.120 their game. And so the arms race is to be 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:23.000 this is not to simply hide, not to simply hunt, 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:25.960 but to to manage all of these skills. And to 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:28.200 do that you need a pretty impressive brain. And UH 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:32.240 and pretty impressive nervous tissue to boot. Yeah, let's talk 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:34.920 about their tool use. We have mentioned this before, but 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:39.600 they are master tool users. Yes, um there there, there's 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:42.720 some fascinating footage you can find online up to of 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:47.200 octopi using coconuts for shelter. Basically a coconut half turn 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:50.160 it up. You got yourself a house, which is not 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:52.719 that big of a level as that revelation for for us, 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:54.959 but for a creature like this, it's pretty that's pretty 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:58.440 phenomenal because tool use is uh is generally a mark 0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:02.120 of a pretty advanced organism. But here's just the essentially 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:04.360 a sea slug that is uh, that is not really 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:06.959 a sea slug, but just to the slander it a bit. 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:10.599 This is a creature that that is is akin to 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:12.880 a sea slug, and it is it is figured out 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:16.760 how to use tools. Other examples, you have the blanket octopus, 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:19.720 which is immune to the man of war jellyfish sting. 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:22.720 So what he does he or she does is uh, 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:26.440 the octopus will glide down to the jellyfish, to this 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:28.840 man of war and a rip off a few tentacles, 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:31.000 and then it has this poisonous whip that it can 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:34.160 use to protect itself. In some of the tentacles too, 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:38.160 they float away and there's some bioluminescence involved as well. Right, 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:41.160 it's distract to make it say to the prey, well, 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:43.720 you know, am I going this way? Where am I 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:45.640 going that way? Yeah? I mean it's uh, I mean 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:48.280 it's it's rather simple tool use. They are not uh 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:49.840 and and we have a whole episode on tool use 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:51.440 that if you really want to get into like the 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:55.080 different levels of tool use and what they mean in 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:58.000 terms of a creature's intellect. So they're not doing anything 0:13:58.080 --> 0:14:01.199 like like creating true our effects. They're not building bow 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:04.120 and arrows yet, but they are. But they are saying, hey, 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:08.280 that appendage on that creature there's is pretty uh, pretty hostile. 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:10.640 Uh and uh and it makes some pretty colors. I'm 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:12.040 gonna rip that off and I'm gonna use it for 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:15.839 my own purposes. Or that shell of that coconut is 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:18.640 actually pretty useful as a shelter for me. I'm gonna 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:20.920 take it and use it for that. Here here's one 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:23.320 thing that I think they completely lap us in in 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:27.120 terms of our own pincer grasp. As I had mentioned before, 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:30.760 they've got the ganglia on their tentacles and uh so 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:34.800 gangling are controlling every sucker, right, and they have exquisite 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:37.040 control over their body in that way, and they can 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:39.200 fold the two sides of it suckered together to form 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:41.080 a pincer grasp, and so it can do that with 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:43.880 every single one. So it has like a hundred pincer 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:48.080 grasp to our to our one little clumbing. It's pretty 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:51.480 pretty impressive. And like I said earlier, occupy are capable 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:54.160 of playing like their their minds are advanced enough that 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:59.160 they're constantly learning. They're they're they're they're geared to again, 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:01.960 live on this reach, live in the jungle nineteen seventies 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:03.760 New York. So if you take them out of that 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:07.480 nineteen seventies New York and you put them in suburbia, 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:09.720 they're gonna go a little stair crazy and started just 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:11.480 messing with stuff just to be messing with it. And 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:15.440 that's exactly what happens in aquarium environment. The stories are 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:18.960 just numerous. Anytime you if you talk to someone who's 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:21.280 working in an aquarium, or you know, look up any 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:23.880 accounts online and people say, oh, yeah, we found out 0:15:23.920 --> 0:15:26.840 that this this octopus was sneaking out of the the 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:30.440 aquarium at night and eating sharks, or we we have 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:35.760 to constantly keep the octopus from taking the entire aquarium apart, 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:40.080 taking apart, uh you know, suction equipment, taking apart, cameras, 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:44.680 taking apart, submarine taking apart a robot submarine in one 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:47.040 of the tanks, part by part, which I thought was awesome. 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:51.640 There was other another account, um that one of the 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:57.240 keepers had given um some of the octopus, uh, some 0:15:57.360 --> 0:16:00.360 shrimp and there was a slightly spoiled one, and so 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:03.800 the octopus actually stuffed it down the drain, whelming maintaining 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:06.640 eye contact with her as if to say, really, you're 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:09.840 gonna try to pass that by me. Yeah, And we've 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:11.920 actually studied this too, it's not all just like uh 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:17.280 sort of back room accounts. Uh. Read an interview with 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:20.920 Jennifer math Or, who's a comparative psychologist University of Lethbridge 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:23.520 in a bart of Canada, and um, she was part 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:25.600 of an experiment where they gave a pair of octopy 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:29.400 in an empty tank, a floating pill bottle. That's it, 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:33.720 just a floating pill bottle and two board occupy and uh, 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:36.880 they watched them in a seat like in twenty different 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:39.720 times like in a sequence. Uh, they watched them do 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:41.840 the She said, exactly the kind of thing that we 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:43.640 would do if we were to, say, bounce a ball 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:45.920 off a wall, like Steve McQueen in The Great Escape. 0:16:46.040 --> 0:16:49.040 Just out of boredom. They started just bouncing this stuff 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:53.160 pill bottle around and flipping it around the tank, which 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:55.560 you know, of course, when you're in captivity, that's that's 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:57.760 going to happen. They're going to go a bit store crazy. 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:00.840 So it's important to have things to enrich and and 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:04.000 certainly they've shown themselves capable of solving mazes. Uh. They 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:06.520 like puzzles that Generally, if you see an octopus on 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:09.400 display and an aquarium, it will not be an empty container. 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:12.520 They'll have various things to interact with. They will be 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:15.240 given food inside of a toy of some kind where 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:18.640 they have to actually work at it because they're active 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:21.520 creatures and they need an active environment. Or sometimes they 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:25.640 are asked to predict the World Cup winner, like our 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:30.880 friend Paul the octopus who have born January eight died 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:37.520 October two, ten um. Anyone who follows um soccer or 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:43.720 cephalopod h news probably caught this one. But Paul lived 0:17:43.720 --> 0:17:47.760 at the Sea Life Center in Oberhausen, Germany, and they 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:50.880 had this, uh, this gimmick set up where um he 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:53.280 was he was able to correctly predict the winner of 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:56.679 each of Germany's national football teams seven matches in the 0:17:56.720 --> 0:17:59.840 two thousand ten f i f A World Cup as 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:03.560 well was the outcome of the final? Um didn't he 0:18:03.600 --> 0:18:06.160 have like the for the outcome of the final wasn't 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:11.359 like accuracy? Yea and yeah. And then the other level 0:18:11.440 --> 0:18:13.560 that you just said before that was like a six 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:15.359 or six yeah, And it was based on like where 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:17.080 you would pick food from one or one of two places. 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:18.919 It wasn't It's not like the octop I had a 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:22.800 Twitter account or a blog he was he was just 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:25.680 making basically a random choice. And then that's the big 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:29.320 criticism here. He wasn't actually making predictions and and there 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:31.480 was all there also been accusations that there was some 0:18:31.560 --> 0:18:33.639 bias involved on the part of the people caring for 0:18:33.680 --> 0:18:36.800 the octopus. But the food container had the team's logo 0:18:36.880 --> 0:18:39.560 on it, right, Yeah, but but it was still an 0:18:39.560 --> 0:18:43.320 exciting day in uh in cephalopod media, Hey, I mean 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:45.840 I gave some attention to cephalopods. So there you go. 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:48.760 That was a win. All right, Well, we mentioned the 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:52.359 nautilus earlier. Yes, so let's let's discuss the nautils, and 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:57.760 Nautilus is a much older organism and it's less advanced, 0:18:57.760 --> 0:19:02.760 it's less bright compared to other cephal pods. It's tiny. Yeah, 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:07.720 they're the soul surviving family of an not alloids in general, 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:10.080 which includes like the nautilus and the paper nautilus, which 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:13.600 we mentioned in the previous episode. Soul surviving members of 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:18.359 the externally shelled cephalopod family that live that thrived in 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:22.760 tropical oceans four dred and fifty fifty million years ago. Yeah. 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:25.760 They diverge from the from their cousins squid, octopus and 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:28.960 cutlefish four hundred million years ago, which makes them more 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:31.520 i should say, on the tiny scale in comparison. Yeah. 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:34.520 And they're fascinating organisms, just beautiful to to look at, 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:37.600 and the shells are amazing. But they have tiny, tiny 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:40.840 brains and they lack that dedicated learning region that we 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:44.320 see in other cephalopods. Yet what's amazing is that we've 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:47.720 in experiments, we've shown that they do have a form 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:49.920 of short term memory that we're still trying to really 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:53.679 understand how it works. Because they shouldn't really be capable 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:57.720 of any kind of higher brain function. UM. There again, 0:19:57.760 --> 0:20:00.720 they're kind of the dull knife and the cephalopod drawer um. 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:05.320 But in experiments they found that if they use flashes 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:10.879 of light UM paired with with the food, they'll actually 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:15.080 be able to train the cephalopod to extend its tentacles. 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:17.440 Whenever there's that light, it begins to associate the light 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:20.160 with food, and it will retain this memory for about 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:23.040 twenty four hours and then it's gone. So these guys 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:26.120 are kind of like a guy Pierce in Memento. They 0:20:27.400 --> 0:20:30.280 only have the short term memory and then it fades. Well, 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:34.439 what I liked is that I get that right Memento. Ah, 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:40.840 well Memento, everything is in sort of reverse right like yeah, um. 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:43.919 But I really like the way new scientists described it. 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:47.440 It's called simple minded natolyst reveals Flash of Memory. That's 0:20:47.680 --> 0:20:50.600 the article title. They say that first of all, the 0:20:50.640 --> 0:20:53.439 food that was offered with the flash of light was 0:20:53.480 --> 0:20:57.639 an irresistible mixture of pulverized telapia heads and water, So 0:20:57.680 --> 0:21:00.800 the first of all it was ei um. And then 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:05.280 they said that that when um, when they were reacting 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:08.840 to it, that their tentacles were crazy. Now keep in 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:11.440 mind too that in comparison to the octopus is eight 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:16.840 arms um that Annalist has for for the females fifty 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:19.439 arms and males have nineties. So it is quite a 0:21:19.440 --> 0:21:23.159 display when they are waving them around. Um. And that 0:21:23.240 --> 0:21:26.880 they were panting too, which was interesting, the panting nautilus 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:31.960 by Rabbit Lamb. All right, well, we're gonna take a 0:21:32.040 --> 0:21:34.040 quick break and when we come back, we're going to 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:36.959 deal with some squid intelligence. Specifically, we're going to talk 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:40.760 about the Humboldt squid also known as the blows rocks. 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:49.239 All right, we're back. The Humboldt squid also known as 0:21:49.240 --> 0:21:52.320 a jumbo squid, also known again as say it for 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:56.960 us there much better than me? Yes, uh. In fact, 0:21:57.119 --> 0:22:01.160 they were named that by Nexkin fisherman who who noted 0:22:01.320 --> 0:22:05.720 their very aggressive behavior. Yeah occasionally. I mean their tales 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:08.760 of sailors dying at the hands of these guys, right, 0:22:08.800 --> 0:22:12.239 I mean though they slit their throats. I don't think 0:22:12.240 --> 0:22:16.280 they have shanks. They don't have shanks, but anyway they 0:22:16.520 --> 0:22:19.560 have there have been some definite violent encounters with with 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:22.040 Humboldt squid, and they have this reputation as being a 0:22:22.080 --> 0:22:25.160 very aggressive creature. Now there's been some fascinating experiments where 0:22:25.440 --> 0:22:28.320 they like put they take decoy Humboldt squid down into 0:22:28.359 --> 0:22:31.000 the deep and they actually they're able to explore. Then 0:22:31.040 --> 0:22:34.080 they're not just mindlessly aggressive creatures and they're still very 0:22:34.119 --> 0:22:38.200 intelligent animals. But um, under the right circumstances, they can 0:22:38.240 --> 0:22:42.280 be extremely aggressive. But what's more interesting here for us 0:22:42.280 --> 0:22:45.639 as we're discussing cephalopod intelligence, is that the idea that 0:22:45.680 --> 0:22:48.520 they are able to coordinate with each other when yeah, yeah, 0:22:48.600 --> 0:22:52.080 they hunt in schools containing as many as twelve hundred 0:22:52.160 --> 0:22:55.960 other squid. They swim at speeds from three to fifteen 0:22:55.960 --> 0:22:57.960