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Aussie Scientists Find Coconut-Carrying Octopus
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from an AP report: "Australian scientists have discovered an octopus in Indonesia that collects coconut shells for shelter — unusually sophisticated behavior that the researchers believe is the first evidence of tool use in an invertebrate animal. The scientists filmed the veined octopus, Amphioctopus marginatus, selecting halved coconut shells from the sea floor, emptying them out, carrying them under their bodies up to 65 feet (20 meters), and assembling two shells together to make a spherical hiding spot. ... 'I was gobsmacked,' said Finn, a research biologist at the museum who specializes in cephalopods. 'I mean, I've seen a lot of octopuses hiding in shells, but I've never seen one that grabs it up and jogs across the sea floor. I was trying hard not to laugh.'"
From the BBC.
My work here is dung.
I once had a pet octopus. It was small about the size of a fist all curled up. It was always moving things around the tank and rebuilding his or her stone "house".
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
Funny thing is that split coconuts probably aren't too common unless people or animals split them.
That's cuz squid are mean little bitches.
You can't be allowed to say Octopi on slashdot without the inevitable reply from homo pedanticus. The correct english plural of Octopus is Octopusses. In the erroneous belief that Octopus derives from Latin, it is often pluralized as Octopi, but in fact it comes from the Greek, so the pluralization would be Octopodes, except that that would seem overly pedantic. Therefore the correct pluralization of Octopus for the pedantic and for others is Octopusses.
There was one aquarium where the octopus was eating the sharks at night before they finally noticed. There's a video on youtube of the octopus attacking that's pretty cool.