[vidroll id=”theinertia_lg_yt”]https://youtu.be/zaE-LwDowcU[/vidroll]
Octopuses are very strange creatures. Often called octopi because of some faulty Latin pluralization mistake a whole bunch of years ago, they swim around with their giant brain sacs and super intelligence, looking more alien than most aliens.
The octopus in the video above is doing something incredible–he’s carrying around his own makeshift shell. According to scientists, some octopuses have actually figured out that if they’re going somewhere that doesn’t have enough places to hide from predators, they’ll find something like a coconut husk, pack it under their tentacles, and walk to their destination.
That’s incredible for obvious reasons: one, it shows that they’re capable of planning. Two, it shows that they remember vast areas of the ocean in detail. Three, they’re smart enough to use a freaking coconut as a shell. That’s an octopus with foresight.
According to scientists, the first instance of octopuses being filmed carrying coconuts was back in 1999. Off the coasts of Northern Sulawesi and Bali, they were observed taking the discarded husks from the ocean floor. “It is amazing watching them excavate one of these shells,” said Dr. Mark Norman, head of science at Museum Victoria. “They probe their arms down to loosen the mud, then they rotate them out.”
When the shells are free from the mud, the octopuses cleans out the inside stacks them together, and begins the long walk to where ever they’re going. Tool use was long thought to be something only humans did, but the numbers of animals we’re discovering possess a high degree of situational awareness is increasing. Still, scientists believe this is a first for aquatic animals.
