Wednesday, April 11, 2018

this is on my bucket list

I don't normally give a rat's ass about most sea creatures, but the octopus has fascinated me since childhood. It's an extremely smart invertebrate, which some peg at about the IQ level of a dog (although that's disputed; for more on cephalopod intelligence, see here). Meeting an octopus in the ocean, and actually interacting with it in some way, would feel like a sacred privilege to me; an octopus is so utterly alien in its brain structure and physiology that it's amazing to realize how a creature so radically different can engage in activities that we humans can recognize—hunting, hiding, fighting, strolling (yes, some octopi hilariously use their tentacles to "walk" along the sea floor)... and even playing.

The video I've embedded below leaves me green with envy: it's pretty obvious the octopus is having fun, and in a very non-random way. Watch how, though the diver moves his hand around, the octopus unerringly shoots toward it (trivia: octopi, when they swim this way, are actually swimming backwards).* I would kill to be in that man's place.

*I know some of you will object that the man is actually putting his hand in the way of the octopus. Yes, I think there are some instances of that. But there are other instances when the octopus is clearly jetting toward the hand after the hand has moved, and it's only at the end of the video that the octopus seems earnestly intent on leaving the party—another indication that, earlier, it hadn't been trying to get away (note, too, the lack of inking).


Surprises Aplenty said...

I SCUBA dove off of Geoje Do twenty years ago with an adult student and his club. I pointed at a octopus I saw between some rocks. I turned away for a moment and when I looked back, I saw him stuffing the octopus into a sack. They grilled it on the beach soon after we surfaced.

I guess what I am saying is that you are unlikely to see a lot of 'friendly' or curious-about-people octopi around Korea.

Kevin Kim said...

That makes sense. They catch the tentacled beasts here in droves.