Anyway, great video Indoona! New sub here!

Yes - I think we underestimate the diferently intelligent animals on this planet

I find them truly fascinating to watch I thought the mimic guise looked like a sting ray

@karenpriebe4135 that would be a formidable animal to mimic if you wanted to scare off potential predators!

Sounds like a dangerous creature!

😂😂😂

No doubt via the method called Natural Selection!

Good ole darwin

​@@IndoonaOceans I didn't know Mr Natural Selection has such profound sense for aesthetics and humor.

Amen

That’s a lovely thought

Give them a few million more years !

They reach an amazing level of intelligence and sophistication in a usually very brief life. I think it has to be mostly inherited but they’re also incredibly curious too.

I think you are right that there’s lots more to know about the mind of the mimic octopus and yes it would be tempting to try and communicate with it. Similar experiments have been done with dolphins using underwater video to play back dolphin behaviour to them and note the responses. I would not be surprised that this is possible if a researcher were to spend months or years studying the mimic octopus. Yes I have had octopuses come to me while diving as if curious. There are ethical concerns with this sort of experiment and I think the best way would be to do it in the wild in shallow water in Sulawesi, Indonesia being careful not to disturb the animals too much ( so just watching interactions between octopus predators and prey) but the video playback might not be too interventionist. I would try a big mirror first - that could be interesting.

Me too

Not sure what to make of that but good luck!

Yes knowing the minds of others as this octopus seems to do is a big step on the intelligence scale!

Octopi have eight “mini-brains”, one in each tentacle, called “ganglia” which allow them to act both independently and in coordination with the others and the brain. Note that these ganglia aren’t capable of higher thought, just movement and basic sensations, but this means the octopus really only needs to worry about what it wants to mimic and the tentacles could take care of the rest.

There’s an idea! Would probably be more intelligent too.

Amazing yes

Great idea - the sea slugs or nudibranchs have lots of different shapes too

Yes makes you realise there is more to life on Earth than we know

Good point although I read that sometimes moray eels and even seals will give the blue ringed octopus a go. You may know that nature’s mimics who do not actually have venom - like hover flies - require a certain percentage of real venom counterparts in the same environment (wasps, bees) for it to work as a deterrent to birds etc because when there are too few really venomous similar looking animals around the effect is too dilute for it to work on the predators. So at the very least for your theory to work real toxic blue ringed octopus would have to have the same range as the mimics - not sure they do? biologywise.com/batesian-mimicry-vs-mullerian-mimicry#:~:text=This%20is%20an%20example%20of,look%20similar%20to%20each%20other.

@@IndoonaOceans right - good point- maybe mimic a puffer fish? Too bad it can mimic a human- they scare away almost anything. Hahaha Humans are certainly the most destructive.

That’s a good idea - I hadn’t thought of that. One big question is how do they decide what to mimic next?

I think the mimicing depends on the type of prey and the predator. For example if we notice the mimicking of flatfish , it is trying to show its threat to its predators, while when it's mimicing a crab or a mantis shrimp , it's trying to lure its prey , inorder to stroke them when they are in its range . Similarly in the middle zone it pretends to be a jellyfish, to avoid the middle zone predators , while it fails in case of reptiles like turtles so, it imitates a lionfish . So , finally I want to say that out of the marvelous creatures present around us , this is one of miracles gifted to it by mother nature.

@@kayalavardhanbros7062 That's so amazing isn't it? ! It means that it is probably second guessing how the predator or prey will respond to its shapes and that therefore it knows a little about what it is like to get inside other creature's minds. How it learns is a mystery too - probably watching other mimic octopus - how else?

Yeah I agree with you, but I think similarily how we learn to behave from seeing our surroundings and our elders , similarly I think it also learns from its experience , surroundings and its neighbourly octopuses of its kind .

There is a brief shot of one in there but I’ll look for more footage and see what I can do

That's brilliant - thanks so much for getting back to me I will study it. - maybe it will be the inspiration for another video here!

​@@IndoonaOceans oh yes it is definitely video worthy

Good one - will have another look. Not sure how on Earth they choose which one to do at any time!

That would be a good one to imitate!

Good call!

True - although relatively recent I think is fair and surprising since at least 50 years after the invention of scuba. Personally I still think it’s 1983!

That’s very true. Sometimes I think we put them into our own frame of intelligence when in fact they might have a totally different outlook. Maybe they can learn fast too?

It’s stock footage from Videvo but I knew what it was as I have tried to film in Sulawesi at Kunkanan Bay where they can be found

People often write “octopi” instead because they assume that the plural noun is formed in the same way as Latin loanwords such as “fungus/fungi”. But “octopus” actually comes from Greek, where its original plural is “octopodes”. In English, it instead has the regular plural form “octopuses”. www.scribbr.co.uk › faqs What is the plural of "octopus"? - Scribbr

That’s a really great thought- will compare

Yes it’s pretty incredible isn’t it

Nice idea - I should do a follow up video with more suggestions like these

Good idea

Good question- I think it doesn’t really know but if by mimicking the snake it survives then it will breed true and the trait will persist

I think it can be either

It’s archive I bought in but yes it’s important to be respectful- although underwater photography often means getting close without stressing the animal- being alert to that is key

bro has the entire ocean to swim away to

@elliot_rat In theory but it probably likes home best like all of us!

@@IndoonaOceans Well said!

Right, no amount of yet discovered knowledge is worth stressing a fish out for. Not to mention the bazillions of fish we suffocate and eat...

Could be and a good observation about spiders and the complexity of their webs. It seems a lot to ask for genetics to make them adaptable to different predators and prey though.

​@@IndoonaOceans Ask genetics to make what adaptable, sir? As for the observation, it's just logics and rational. Especially due to their short lifespans. 4 years is not quite much to learn what they know, or should know, correct, sir? Hence, it would be logical, intelligence in the Octopodæ Octopus and Sepioteuthis is from a genetic point highly probable? At least, that's what I assume. Like in Arachnidæ, where newly born can make nigh perfect webs, it is assumed, intelligence can be passed on. Now, memory, for one, is not mere stored in the brain, like many assume. It is stored allover one's body.

To prove this: A woman, who had a heart transplant, suddenly had a craving for whiskey. Odd, as she always had a dislike for the taste of good whiskey ... . Upon looking deeper, it so happened, that the previous owner of the heart ... had a real taste for good whiskey. And there are several cases like this recorded. We do not even know half of what our brain is, or does. Nor for the body in general, so it seems. We do not even know exactly what intelligence is, for that matter. Strange ... but true. :)

Also, thank you VERY much, for replying, good sir. Forgot to mention this.

⁠I like Auchentoshan single malt when I can get it actually and I’m pretty sure it’s my Scottish ancestry! Science of course never proves anything only supports or doesn’t a hypothesis about things. If many peer reviewed papers tend to suggest that a given hypothesis is true then that makes a consensus of opinion going with that hypothesis but one can never be completely certain about anything. That’s probably as it should be because life and the natural world are pretty complex.

They do seem alien to us but I am sure we are to them too!

I don’t personally subscribe to any of that but must agree that these animals are truly amazing

I am convinced it is evolution even though it may seem impossible if we look at it in the context of our short lives. The issue is it has been going on for over three billion years and that’s a huge time of course and our lives only a single snapshot in that and so it’s difficult to actually see it as it happens. In the Origin of Species the first chapter is about the selective breeding of fancy pigeons favoured by hobbyists for certain traits. Darwin asked what would happen if it was nature doing the selection instead of breeders. Any trait that confers benefits to the offspring will tend to survive better and hence breed another generation that continues and amplifies those beneficial characteristics. This is evidenced by the fact that young in the majority of cases are produced as variations of their parents in greater numbers than needed with the idea that only some or just enough of those variations with useful key traits will survive the present environmental conditions to breed the next generation. Over many millions of years that has shaped countless generations of mimic octopus with the trait to be able to mimic predators and prey because it is evidently an incredibly successful one.That is a science hypothesis with demonstrable evidence and not a belief like religion, which BTW you can have of course AND agree with the findings of evolution. Darwin himself was devoutly religious in his life ( less so after his young daughter died and he lost belief) and the two are not mutually exclusive- a spiritual understanding as well as an understanding of the physical world, but the first based on belief and the second on evidence.

why couldn't a creator be intelligent enough to think of evolution??

Yes good thought. I image it would try that so that unsuspecting prey might not notice. The really interesting thing is how it decides to be what and when - how it knows the context of its encounters.