The smartest creature in the sea?


	The smartest creature in the sea?

Matthew Herper

6-24-2008 12:54 PM

649 views

Matthew Herper says:

In a Slate article, Carl Zimmer argues for the octopus. Get ready to feel some guilt for that cephalopod salad you ate last week.

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://www.clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/a878f4e5-b871-4c19-b85e-3033440494fd/2C9325C6-7825-4444-938C-D39950409C6C/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.slate.com/id/2192211/" href="http://www.slate.com/id/2192211/" style="font-size: 11px;">www.slate.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.slate.com/id/2192211/"><P>Aristotle didn't have a high opinion of the octopus. "The octopus is a stupid creature," he wrote, "for it will approach a man's hand if it be lowered in the water." Twenty-four centuries later, this "stupid" creature is enjoying a much better reputation. YouTube is loaded with evidence of what some might call octopus intelligence. One does an <A target="_blank" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8oQBYw6xxc">uncanny impression of a flounder</A>. Another <A target="_blank" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EORp9mR2iOA">mimics coral</A> before darting away from a pushy camera. A third slips its arms around a jar, <A target="_blank" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8cf7tPoN5o">unscrews it</A>, and dines on the crab inside. Scientific journals publish research papers on octopus learning, octopus personality, octopus memory. Now the octopus has even made it into the pages of the journal <EM>Consciousness and Cognition</EM> (along with its fellow cephalopods the squid and the cuttlefish). The title: "<A target="_blank" href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2006.11.006">Cephalopod consciousness: behavioral evidence</A>."</P></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/2C9325C6-7825-4444-938C-D39950409C6C/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content7.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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