Octopi are smart guys, they evolved, over millions of years, a sort of brain, a fusion of the small ganglia present in other mollusks into a specialized neural mass. Octopi (and to a certain extent cuttlefish) exhibit spatial learning and, for someone, even observational learning. But some Cephalopods, like the Caribbean Reef Squid (PDF) even communicate visually between each other, through their chromatophores, changing the patterns on their skin in waves (this process is usually used for camouflage, as the impressive video above illustrates). Another interesting fact is that the central nervous system of cephalopods hasn’t got complete control over their numerous and flexible appendices. Specialized ganglia in the tentacles preprocess the information which would otherwise overflow the brain.
The most dramatic evidence for octopus intelligence came in 1992. A pair of researchers in Naples, Italy, Graziano Fiorito and Pietro Scotto, used conventional means–food as a carrot, mild electric shock as the stick–to train a group of captive common octopuses to grab a red ball instead of a white one. The scientists then let untrained animals watch from adjoining tanks as their experienced confreres reached for red balls over and over. Thereafter, Fiorito and Scotto reported, most of the watchers, when offered a choice, pounced on red balls. In fact, they learned to do so more quickly than had the original group. The octopuses, according to the researchers, were doing something invertebrate had never been known to do before: learning by watching. (National Wildlife Magazine, Study published here)
Poor things, even I would have exhibited observational learning in their place…
Update: speaking of tortured Octopi, have a look at this BoingBoing post.
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