Tako Take-off
How smart are octopus? Probably smarter than you think, possibly smarter than your neighbor and definitely smarter than your goldfish. They exhibit excellent problem solving skills and general cognitive awareness as proven by numerous studies.
Working on dive boats you meet a lot of people, some of which have lifestyles that highly compliment their diving hobby. I met a guy who owned or managed a fish-only pet store which had octopus for sale and he told me a great story showcasing their cleverness. They would feed the octopus goldfish and one day decided to test them with a little trick. The employees put the goldfish in a small jar with a screw on lid and placed the whole thing in the tank. In minutes the octopus had unscrewed the lid releasing the goldfish into the tank to then catch and devour it.. The most curious part though, is that they continued to do this and noticed the octopus started to change their procedure and perfect their methods. The octopus would unscrew the jar but only crack the lid just enough to get a tentacle in, grab the goldfish, quickly pull the goldfish and then immediately recap the lid before eating the goldfish. They figured out he didn’t like the fresh water from the goldfish tank, the octopus was living in a salt water ocean tank but goldfish are fresh water fish. The jar would have fresh water from the goldfish tanks with far different water parameters, things like pH, ammonia, NO2’s and NO3’s, phosphates, calcium, and salinity would all be thrown off a bit. It wasn’t enough of a water change to hurt the octopus, but clearly it was at least uncomfortable or undesirable because the octopus always aimed to keep as much fresh water from mixing into their salt water reef tanks and with their water undisturbed everyone lived happily ever after. Except the goldfish….
-Capt. Greg
