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Ask a biologist what the most intelligent creatures are on Earth and they’ll probably come up with a fairly similar list: larger mammals such as horses, dogs, dolphins, pigs, the great apes as well some birds like crows and ravens. But now some scientist believe that one of the most intelligent beings on Earth is in fact the octopus – which doesn’t belong to any of these groups.

Every schoolchild knows that octopuses ( or octopi ) have eight legs and can shoot ink while trying to escape from enemies. But there are many other unusual things about octopuses. For example, the legs of some octopuses can grow a new one. It also as three hearts and complex eyes, which seem to belong to a mammal rather than a sea creature. Octopuses also seem to be experts at escaping – they have extremely soft, flexible bodies and can escape through holes not much bigger than their eyes. There are many biologists who have stories about walking into the laboratory after lunch to find their octopus had escaped from its aquarium and was now hiding in a teapot or climbing a bookshelf!

However, even until quite recently, little was know about octopus intelligence. There are several reason for this. Firstly, octopuses usually live at the bottom of river mouths and seas – areas which are not attractive to researchers. Secondly, they are not social animals so it can be difficult to study their interaction with others. Perhaps most importantly, octopus intelligence is not easy for humans to understand. When we observe mammals such as rats or dogs we can often instinctively understand their behaviour. Octopuses, however can seem like aliens. Scientist need to have a lot of imagination to able to understand what an octopuses is thinking!

In the 1950s, the US Air Force sponsored scientists to sudy the way octopuses use their brains. They hoped that they could use this knowledge to help them build beter computers. However, their brains were so complex that the scientists quickly gave up. An deven today the octopuses brain is a mystrey. Octopuses have a very complex nervous system and recent research suggests that they have some of their intelligence inside each arm, which means that each arm can ‘think’ for itself. It also appears that they have a good memories, perhaps similar to a cat’s. Some octopuses in laboratories seem to play with object as if they were toys – a sure sign of intelligence. Others could pick up complicated skills like opening jars.

Perhaps the most striking thing about octopuses is their ağabeylity to change their colour and body pattern. They do this to camouflage themselves and also to communicate with others. They can completely change their apperance in less than second – a striped octopusescan suddenly become spotted. It can change its skin to look like rocks, sand or planktron. A scientist once observed an octopuses that changed its apperance nearly 1,000 times during seven hours of feding! It can change its appearance to look like a dangerous predator – and can even copy its style of swimming.

Some scientists have even suggested that these different patterns and colours are in fact a very sophisticated language – and that each design is a different verb, adjective or noun. But nobody has been able to work out what they might be saying. It seems like the problem isn’t the limitation of the animals… but the limitations of humans!

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