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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday November 29 2017, @03:54PM   Printer-friendly
from the clever-girl dept.

Now that's alien intelligence:

The she-cephalopod was filmed by the Blue Planet II crew as they were exploring the inky depths in South Africa, focusing on the magical world of marine forests. As series producer Mark Brownlow explains, "We may think of our ocean's as blue but there is another surprising world of the Green Seas. From towering undersea forests of giant kelp to vast prairies of sea grass, this is an almost Brothers Grimm fairy tale of all the strange and magical creatures that live within these secret worlds. Here sea dragons lurk, bizarre giant cuttlefish breed, and an ingenious octopus outwits a forest full of sharks."

Our tale of clever derring-do begins when a hungry pyjama shark goes to attack the octopus, who quickly inserts its tentacles into the shark's gills in an effort to suffocate it. Shark lets go; octopus skedaddles.

But then she does something truly remarkable, and something never before seen (by humans, at least). As the show's narrator, Sir David Attenborough, says: "The octopus is far from finished."

Caught in the open, she scrambles to the seafloor, attaches shells to her body with her suckers, and rolls up into a beautiful mosaic ball. The shark is left confused and by the time it seems to figure out what is going on, the octopus darts away, leaving the shark looking for her in the scattered detritus of her ersatz armor.

Clever. Maybe we should try teaching octopi sign language, as as we have other species.


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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday November 29 2017, @04:23PM (2 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday November 29 2017, @04:23PM (#603039)

    Is that how Hank became a septapus?

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @04:38PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @04:38PM (#603049)

    Ladies, meet Henry the Hexapus. That's not virtue signalling; Henry gave an arm and a leg to help the poor. Henry is a quality mate and you know you want his hectocotylus inside you.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @09:55PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @09:55PM (#603202)

    Apparently some species of octopus, the 8th arm of males is also the penis and it is located in the head - 7 armed dickheads.