They are mysterious smoke throwers, skilled grabbers and savvy hunters: octopods fascinate researchers and laypeople alike. This may also be due to the fact that they are among the most intelligent of the invertebrates. With countless suction cups on their eight arms, for example, they can hold super prey. Or pull food out of narrow vessels.
This ability made Paul the octopus from the Sealife Aquarium in Oberhausen famous at the 2010 World Cup. As an animal oracle, he correctly predicted all games of the German team as well as the final. Paul was an Octopus vulgaris (common octopus). October 8th is dedicated to him and all other octopuses as World Octopus Day.
Anyone who has ever looked into the eyes of an octopus knows that they are reminiscent of human eyes. Fascinating – and also a bit spooky. Experiments are known from octopuses that show the high performance of their brain: They quickly find their way around a labyrinth in search of food and learn both through experimenting themselves and by watching. Some researchers call the marine animals “eight-legged superbrains”: their memory and ability to learn are comparable to those of vertebrates. And octopuses – divers know this too – are very playful.
Octopods not only use their arms to grab prey, but also to move across the sea floor. If they have to flee quickly, they also jerkily squeeze the water they breathe out of their bodies and use the recoil. They can adapt their body color and pattern to the respective environment in a flash via pigment cells (chormatophores). As a defensive strategy, they eject a cloud of ink from a gland when necessary to confuse enemies.
Octopuses are loners and mainly eat crabs, mussels and crabs, which they crack open with their sharp beaks.
According to experts, the octopus populations are not currently in fundamental danger. Marine biologist Henk-Jan Hoving from the Geomar Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research in Kiel explains that some cephalopods are known to cope relatively well with changing environmental conditions. “They are credited with potentially being among the winners of climate change.” However, more research needs to be done to determine which species this applies to.
Not much is known about how climate change is actually affecting cephalopod (cephalopod) populations, Hoving explains. For some regions, there is a hypothesis that octopods have taken the place of fish in the food web, whose populations are suffering from overfishing. “Cephalopods are opportunists and highly variable in terms of prey.” Therefore, if necessary, they could switch to various prey animals.
Researchers still know very little about the life of cephalopods in the deep sea. Hoving emphasizes that this habitat is the largest but least explored on earth.
However, scientists are not only working to learn more about the life of the octopus – they are also taking the eight-armed all-rounders as a model to create new things. For example, a team from the USA developed a glove based on the model of the octopus arms that can be used to securely grasp and hold objects underwater. The group led by Michael Bartlett (Virginia Tech) reported in the journal Science Advances that his fingers were equipped with suction cups and small laser scanners that measure distances. This allowed objects of the most varied shapes and materials to be reliably gripped in the water.
Although there will soon be a football World Cup again – there will probably not be a new Oberhausen octopus oracle as Paul’s successor. Such an action is not planned, said Sealife.
Sources: dpa, “Wissenschaft.de”
