Can an octopus understand what is behind a wall or door based solely on a photograph? This is the request that was sent in for today’s video.
The setup was simple. Place the octopus in the middle chamber. Have two openings. One side has a photo of prey while the other has a photo of a predator. The opening is placed strategically on the wall in order to provide a big enough blind spot. This will prevent the octopus from seeing the crabs on the other side and force him to take the photos into consideration when making his choice.
We spent a few days showing our octopus pictures of crabs on both ends of the experiment tank. Every time he crossed over to other side, he found a crab. The next step was to show the octopus a photo of a crab on one side and a photo of a shark on the other side. If our octopus learned anything, he should cross over to the side with the photo of the crab.
Round 1 was successful. After only a couple of minutes, Albert, our octopus, chose the correct side. Round two was similar. There was a photo of a crab and a photo of a moray eel. Once again, after about 5 minutes, our octopus chose correctly and went through the door with the crab. This round was also successful.
In the third and final round, we used a photo of a moray eel and a photo of a shark hoping that our octopus would not pass through either door. Both these animals are known to prey on octopuses. After much thought, our octopus chose to walk into the side with the moray eel. This eel is known to snack on octopus every chance they get but there are many instances where the octopus comes out victorious. Could this have played a role in his decision making? He did appear to climb higher up in the tank in the final round. Was he trying to get a better look?
We’ll definitely be revisiting this one in the future and would love to hear your thoughts on how we can run this same experiment with less variables. After this experiment, and the results we got during the giant maze video, it is becoming more and more evident that they are influenced by photos. Very interesting indeed!
Thanks again for all your requests!
