1:58

Everything,

2:01

by the way, is beneath Brian Cox. They're

2:05

in the ocean. Beneath the waves we

2:07

find an animal that may have an intelligence

2:09

comparable to ours. And it's an

2:11

incredible thing because also rather tragically,

2:14

for some people it's also delicious too, which

2:16

means that marine biologists are always caught between

2:18

the desire to talk to it or just open the soy

2:21

sauce. Now, it was at that

2:23

point when we were scribbling notes for that where we

2:25

went, is that the point too far? And

2:27

I would like to thank the audience here for

2:30

being our moral compass and saying, that

2:32

would not make the edit. It was an extremely

2:34

nervous laugh. It was how you served it,

2:37

it was raw. Where it cooked with olive oil, we'd have been into

2:39

it. Today we're

2:41

going to be discussing the octopuses

2:43

of the ness. Just how different is the octopus

2:45

to us? How do they live their lives? How do they

2:48

see the world? And just how intelligent are these remarkable

2:50

creatures? Who here likes octopuses? That's

2:55

a relief to discuss our fascinating

2:57

and evolutionarily far distant aquatic

2:59

cousins. We are joined by a marine

3:01

biologist, a neuroscientist

3:03

and the presenter of Jordy

3:05

Shaw, the reunion. It

3:08

was the nearest we could find Russell to anything involving

3:10

the seaside. We've all got bills to pay, Robin,

3:12

move on. Hello,

3:17

I'm Tim Lamont. I'm a coral reef

3:19

ecologist at Lancaster University. And

3:22

if I could have a conversation with any animal,

3:24

it would be my mother-in-law's dog, because

3:26

it doesn't like me very much and I'd like to try and put that

3:28

right.

3:31

Hi, my name is Amy Courtney. I'm a postdoctoral

3:33

scientist in the MRC Laboratory

3:36

of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. An

3:38

animal that I'd like to have a conversation with is

3:40

unsurprisingly an octopus, because I

3:43

spend a lot of my time thinking about how the brains

3:45

of octopuses work, what they must be

3:47

thinking, what they must be experiencing.

3:50

So in this fantasy, I imagine that we're in

3:52

like a therapist's office and the octopus

3:54

is sprawled out on the couch.

3:56

They're taking notes asking about its deepest

3:58

fears and life aspirations.

3:59

My

4:02

name is Russell Kane, I present Reunion Shows

4:04

for Reality TV. I'm

4:06

also a stand-up comedian. If

4:08

I could have a conversation with any creature it would be

4:11

with a mammal, probably my father,

4:13

as I never managed a full conversation with him.

4:16

Having done some of the research I realised that

4:18

his primordial grunts and clicks possibly

4:20

were language and maybe he was trying

4:22

to communicate with me but I never did learn Essex.

4:24

He could only communicate with the glint of a Rolex and

4:27

anal gaff. And this is our panel.

4:38

So I thank Tim first of all for taking us also

4:40

onto the Northern Club circuit of the 1970s. I'm not saying

4:44

my mother-in-law's dog's not a male

4:46

but it does give me looks, it gives me looks.

4:49

I wondered where that intro was going. The

4:51

animal has most likely to be a gay, where does my mother-in-law?

4:53

He was a Northern Club marine biologist,

4:55

he started out in the small clubs in the north

4:58

and now look at him. I'm a little bit blue but that's because

5:00

I'm a marine biologist.

5:04

Because water preferentially absorbs longer

5:06

wavelengths of light so there's certainly a guy down

5:08

here. He gets bluer and bluer.

5:12

Anyway. So Tim, I suppose we always

5:14

start with definitions and the octopus, as

5:17

Brian was saying, can seem like such an alien

5:19

creature so give us some sense of what an

5:21

octopus is. It's completely

5:24

alien and when you spend time with a

5:26

wild octopus in its habitat it's

5:28

completely mesmerising. You lose track of time,

5:31

you lose track of your surroundings, you just want

5:33

to watch this thing because you get

5:35

this immediate sense that it's

5:37

so far removed from what you are

5:39

and what you understand of the world that

5:42

it's quite captivating. So first it's

5:44

got these eight arms, each of which are covered

5:46

in suckers and there's a skin

5:49

across all of the arms that isn't just touching

5:52

and feeling things like we do but is tasting

5:54

things through the skin and is sensing

5:56

the colour of things through the skin. And

5:59

as you see this animal exploring

6:01

its environment with all of this detail

6:03

and all of this information coming in, it's

6:06

not so much crawling around its environment as

6:08

pouring itself through its environment is

6:11

probably the best way to describe it. And that's because it

6:13

has no skeleton, it's just this sort of amorphous

6:16

liquid animal almost that can turn

6:18

itself into any shape. And it can also

6:21

turn itself into any colour, and often does,

6:23

so it can match the background of

6:25

anything it swims across and turn invisible

6:27

at will. It's like Keir Starmer to be honest.

6:32

Particularly to match any colour part. And

6:36

on top of this, as if it didn't have enough gadgets already,

6:38

it's got this funnel that protrudes from under its

6:40

head which it can use either as a water gun

6:43

or as a jet pack, and then

6:45

on top of that it's got this tongue that is a drill

6:47

rather than a tongue. So it's got this list of sort of

6:49

characteristics and superpowers that if

6:52

a six year old handed it to you, drawn on a piece of

6:54

paper and said that's an alien, you'd go yep

6:56

that's an alien. But it's not a clump's card

6:58

of animals to have in your pack to be a winner.

7:01

Well it would make it a boring game because you just win

7:03

every time with the octopus. So talking about

7:05

actually being in the

7:07

wild, what was so different

7:09

for you in terms of everything that you'd research beforehand?

7:13

You said losing time, seeing it now

7:15

in its natural environment, what was that sensation

7:18

like? It's very difficult to describe. I think

7:21

it's an appreciation of something that you immediately

7:23

know you don't understand, and it's that sense

7:26

of seeing something that you've no idea what

7:28

it's going to do next, you've no idea what

7:30

it's sensing or what it must feel like to

7:33

sense that, and you don't really have

7:35

any idea what it makes of you other

7:37

than you get this slightly eerie feeling

7:39

that it definitely makes sensing of you.

7:41

And Amy that matches what you said in the introduction

7:44

actually that you'd like to communicate with

7:46

one of these alien

7:49

life forms. Absolutely. I think

7:51

a lot as well about whether or not they have some form

7:54

of consciousness. One of the most

7:56

interesting things I think about the octopus nervous

7:58

system is that it's so different from our Most

8:00

of our neurons are found in our brains and they also

8:02

have a brain within their head between their eyes But

8:05

they also have majority of their neurons within

8:07

their arms So there's been a lot of people that

8:09

have proposed that they possibly have multiple

8:11

locations of

8:12

consciousness within their body So not only

8:14

do I want to know what it feels like to be an octopus

8:16

I want to know what it feels like to be an octopus arm There's

8:20

that famous essay by Thomas Nagel

8:22

on what it's like to be a bat is that something?

8:25

So would you say in terms of from

8:27

your thoughts in terms of all of the living things

8:29

on earth? That you would imagine that the octopus

8:31

will be the first other species to go to

8:34

after humans to go there is an

8:37

inner life there is Richness

8:39

of experience.

8:40

I think so I think we're still missing a lot of the

8:42

data but a lot of the metrics

8:43

that we use to define intelligence There's

8:46

a lot of evidence that octopus has a lot of that

8:48

Russell is the description of these animals

8:50

already is something far

8:53

deeper and stranger than I'd imagined It's

8:55

just the idea of each arm having its own

8:57

consciousness like one could be a like a bit of a bell

8:59

end Terry stop it I'm

9:02

not racist, but no carry Could

9:08

I might not get on That

9:13

has blown my mind the idea that consciousness

9:15

could be multiply located in one How

9:18

they even work surely there's like a central hub

9:21

in control of what's going on because a little

9:23

I know about Octopus they investigate you

9:25

with their arm, but they're not just touching you

9:27

they're getting to know you with their hands That's

9:30

how to purvey that I didn't mean I

9:34

was just getting to know you very traditional

9:36

BBC entertainer

9:41

A few years ago, there were multiple

9:43

octopuses running the baby. I I Mean

9:47

you're interesting point there because that makes me think

9:49

of human beings when human beings who had the corpus colosseum

9:52

70 means that the right hemisphere in the left and right Aren't

9:55

communicating together and you hear about people

9:57

who one hand is trying to do

9:59

up the buttons of it and the other is undoing

10:01

them. So even, you know, within ourselves,

10:03

if you change some of the connections, then it turns

10:05

out there is more than one self possibly

10:08

in there. Bloody hell. We

10:10

got there early, didn't we? So

10:13

it felt more like Melvin Bragg. Could

10:16

you describe, Tim, the evolutionary

10:19

story of the octopus, so how far back

10:21

in time do we have to go to find a common ancestor

10:24

between ourselves and the octopus?

10:26

Miles and miles back, the common

10:29

ancestor of us looks like

10:31

a worm that doesn't do a lot. It's before

10:33

what we call the Cambrian era, which, you

10:35

know, it's a long way before the dinosaurs. It's about half

10:37

a billion years ago. And that,

10:40

I think, explains some of the strangeness because

10:42

almost everything that we have evolved,

10:44

both us and the octopus as complex

10:46

animals, has been evolved separately. And

10:49

so there's some examples of things that we've evolved

10:51

that are really quite remarkably similar. Our

10:54

eyes work in almost exactly the same way. And

10:56

then there's other things which are completely different

10:59

and totally alien. Is it too much to speculate

11:01

from that? That if there is life in the universe,

11:03

then it probably has ended up with two

11:06

eyes, arms at touch and consciousness.

11:09

Because if it's evolved twice on our planet,

11:12

it obviously is something that inevitably happens

11:14

if natural selection takes place. It's

11:16

a good question, isn't it, in terms of the fact that intelligence

11:19

at a high level has evolved

11:22

in parallel twice,

11:24

I mean, maybe more, maybe

11:26

that's a question. But certainly in this case, the

11:28

intelligence was not present in the common ancestor

11:31

at all. No, and it's evolved in very

11:33

different ways, which is quite curious. And

11:36

it's involved into different types of intelligence.

11:38

So most animals that have evolved intelligence

11:41

have evolved in a social context where

11:43

they're doing a lot of interacting with other animals

11:45

in their species. And they've evolved it in

11:47

a context where they develop and grow up

11:49

very slowly with a lot of learning and

11:51

care from their parents. You know, you take

11:54

humans, it takes 18 years to leave home. And

11:56

some people still can't look after themselves. I

11:58

don't know. But where's the octopus? Octopus never

12:00

meets its parents and it's famously

12:03

anti-social as an animal. So it's not learning

12:05

from any other octopus. And

12:08

it lives its whole life, most octopus

12:10

species, within about two years. So it's

12:12

learning astonishingly quickly with no role models.

12:14

Are the skills inborn then? Because how can

12:16

you learn all that stuff in such a short span? I

12:18

think a lot of them aren't inborn. Certainly

12:21

there's a lot of investigation,

12:23

a lot of curiosity. Octopuses

12:25

will often fail a task when they first are presented

12:28

with it and try it and then learn it very, very quickly.

12:31

They're explorers, they're real sort of... Problem

12:34

solvers. Problem solvers, that's the way to put it. Exactly.

12:38

Sorry. But why such a short lifespan? Normally

12:40

the bigger brain you've got on

12:42

our planet, the longer you live, to capitalize.

12:45

If you're going to invest in a bit of kit, you want to get the value

12:47

out of it, right? So evolution has

12:49

given me this kit, so I want

12:52

to stretch it for as long as possible, try and get 100 years

12:54

out of it. So the octopus develops this massive

12:56

brain and then just backs it off

12:58

after two years. So you're right in a human context

13:00

that if you've bothered to invest in this massive

13:03

bit of kit, as you put it, that it's

13:05

worth living for a long time to get lots out of it. But

13:08

that's because your random everyday

13:10

chance of dying is quite small. Come and

13:12

watch me live, it isn't. So

13:19

if you're an octopus, you live in a fantastically

13:21

dangerous world. The chance of getting eaten

13:24

by something on any given day is really

13:26

very easy. And that's because you live

13:28

in very diverse, very busy

13:30

environments, lots of predators around

13:32

and you've got no shell or anything to protect you.

13:35

So despite the fact they're so good at disguise, they've still

13:37

got a high chance of dying. And that means

13:39

that as an evolutionary strategy, you

13:42

should pack everything into the startup of your life.

13:44

You should die in fact. You can't kill me

13:46

if I'm dead, can you? Oh, I win. You

13:49

should do everything in two years before something else will kill

13:51

you and your life mission is complete. But Amy,

13:53

isn't the awful thing theirs, because we were talking

13:56

about the fact that they don't have parents, but one of

13:58

the things is that's because they've eaten their mother.

14:00

Well no, as a parent, no because we

14:02

were talking about education I meant in that specific bit

14:05

so that kind of idea as well is you

14:08

survive the predators, you manage

14:10

to have children and then they eat you.

14:12

Yeah so for anyone

14:14

who doesn't know when Octopus

14:16

is mate the female will

14:18

bulk up and then she goes off to her den and

14:20

she'll release all of her eggs within the den and during

14:23

that time she basically stars to

14:25

death and as her embryos grow

14:27

up and as they hatch she dies so

14:29

the ultimate

14:30

maternal sacrifice. Does she die

14:33

as they're born or does she sort of linger on to see

14:35

them as toddlers? Seems to

14:37

happen around the same time. Really? Yeah.

14:39

So with an intelligence test

14:42

for a human being we know how we do it and you can have IQ

14:44

tests and things like that so what are

14:46

you actually doing when you're trying to measure the

14:48

intelligence level of an animal like an

14:50

octopus? Yeah

14:51

the difficult thing is how you define

14:54

intelligence because we obviously look

14:56

at it through a human lens. It's like

14:58

trying to compare what's better, a speedboat

15:00

or a jeep, well it depends where you're trying to go and it's

15:02

the same thing an octopus is trying to survive in an

15:04

environment that's very different than us. So the first

15:06

thing I think that makes Octopus

15:08

re-intelligent is something like camouflage like that's

15:11

not something that we can do but they're able to change

15:13

in the colour of their skin to camouflage into

15:15

environment and also communicate with other species.

15:18

Other metrics that we use for intelligence would

15:20

be theory of mind so this is the

15:22

idea that we can understand that someone else

15:24

has thoughts that are different than ours and

15:27

one way that they think that Octopus might be doing this

15:29

is that there's an octopus called a mimic octopus which

15:32

can basically pretend to be or

15:34

like change the colour of their skin so they look

15:37

like a lionfish or they look like a flounder

15:39

so there's this idea that maybe they realise

15:42

that another animal will perceive them as something

15:44

different than they are which is less rewarding

15:46

for them to try and ease. Another thing is

15:49

to have a sense of self-awareness and

15:51

when we try and test whether animals have self-awareness

15:54

one of the main tests that they do is called the mirror test

15:57

which is where they put a dot on the forehead of the animal

15:59

and show them a mirror and

16:01

whether or not the animal interacts with the dog gives

16:03

us some indication that they know that that is themselves.

16:06

They try to do this for octopus and

16:08

as we said octopus are very antisocial so

16:11

when they saw themselves in the mirror most of the time

16:13

they attacked

16:13

the mirror.

16:16

Maybe that's not the right type of test to

16:18

determine that and some other people have proposed

16:21

that one way that we might think

16:23

that octopus does have self-awareness is that apparently

16:25

in some studies when an octopus arm

16:27

has been severed and they present them with

16:29

their own severed arm

16:30

or the severed arm of another octopus. They

16:32

don't eat their own arm, but they will eat the arm of another

16:34

octopus. So they seem to have some way of

16:37

knowing that. Who came up with that

16:39

one? That is the most. And

16:42

do they only do that with octopuses or other

16:44

animals as well? I think this is very old. Oh,

16:48

I want to make that quiz show. Animal 5

16:50

whose arm is it? Is it none? Correct. 500 pounds.

16:56

So one of the problems with trying to test

16:58

intelligence in the octopus is

17:00

that it's quite a mischievous animal. In

17:02

a lot of cases it'll do what it wants and it won't

17:04

play along to the rules of your test. So

17:07

you know what way back when when they were first

17:09

trying to test the intelligence these animals in

17:12

aquariums there's a famous experiment

17:14

where they tried the same sort of test you might have

17:16

heard done on rats or monkeys where there's a

17:18

lever and the octopus has to work out to press

17:20

the lever it gets some food and the first two

17:22

octopuses they tested this on. They played

17:25

nicely they they pressed the lever they got some food

17:27

and then they tried a third octopus which pulled the lever

17:30

out of the wall of a tank and squirted the researcher in the face.

17:34

It's just not interested. You know it can play

17:36

the game, but it doesn't want to why would I? Mischief

17:39

really does I mean like again in terms of ideas

17:41

of consciousness the idea of again

17:43

being able to know that it's doing something to you

17:46

that it's it's playing a game with

17:48

you. Absolutely yeah I've

17:50

been in research stations where it's been

17:52

my job to go around feeding all the animals

17:54

in the tanks and the octopus

17:57

very quickly learned in that research

17:59

station. the chopping board that you would walk

18:01

around holding, which had shrimp on,

18:03

which meant it was about to get its dinner. And

18:05

if you walked past without feeding it, it would come

18:08

lunging out of the tank, it would grab you with

18:10

two of its arms, it would try and, you know, suck

18:12

your arm, it would squirt water at you, it

18:14

would get really, really angry. Whereas

18:16

if you walked past without the chopping board, there's no reaction.

18:19

So you'd imagine also there'd be mixed emotions

18:21

when it would see the chopping board, because in one way it'd say, am

18:23

I being fed or am I being dismembered? I

18:26

know the way that I get treated in

18:28

this world, you just don't know whether it's give or

18:30

take. LAUGHTER Could

18:32

you describe in more detail the

18:35

structure of the nervous system? You mentioned that a lot

18:37

of the neurons are in their legs, but isn't the brain

18:39

doughnut-shaped?

18:41

Yeah. So in between their

18:43

eyes, they have

18:44

the main

18:45

brain, and this is made up

18:47

of about 150 million neurons. Just

18:49

behind each eye, there are these kidney-shaped structures,

18:52

these are for processing visual information,

18:53

but then right in the middle, there's a doughnut-shaped

18:55

brain where their throat goes right through their brain.

18:58

Their throat. Their throat goes through their brain.

19:01

Yeah. Way too not to see a stomach. I've

19:04

always said that. LAUGHTER It

19:07

really does, to me, show that...

19:09

I think when you tend to think of evolution and you

19:11

tend to think of intelligence evolving, it's

19:14

just natural, isn't it, being a human being,

19:16

to think of this central processing system

19:19

in the head, and it's a big sort of

19:21

object, and that's where everything

19:24

happens. But this idea that they're a little

19:26

distributed, it's almost like different CPUs

19:29

in the computer, isn't it? Different things behind the eyes,

19:31

and then there's some things up there, and then there's more

19:33

in the legs, in terms of neurons themselves.

19:36

Yeah. 40 million neurons, I think,

19:38

in each arm.

19:39

So that's 350 in all the arms. So

19:42

half a billion altogether. So a majority

19:44

of the neurons are in the arms.

19:45

How does that compare to a human being? How

19:47

many neurons do you have? We have 86 billion. 86 billion?

19:50

Yeah.

19:50

So they think octopus brains

19:52

are about similar size to, like, a squirrel brain, but

19:55

they punch above their weight in so many ways. So

19:57

a lot of the time we do tend to compare animals.

19:59

about how intelligent they might be by how many neurons

20:02

they have but doesn't always

20:03

directly equate. And the interesting thing as

20:06

well about the nervous system in their arms

20:08

is that there's not as many connections between

20:10

the main brain and the arm nervous system as

20:13

people would expect and actually there's more

20:15

connections going up into the brain than

20:17

there is going down. So like with

20:19

our brain we kind of think of it as a top-down

20:21

command system but they think of the octopus nervous

20:24

system as a bottom-up or an arm-up

20:26

command system.

20:28

You were mentioning about the fact that for an

20:30

animal that doesn't appear to be very social

20:33

this level of intelligence might

20:35

be considered from what we know so far to be unusual

20:37

but is it right that they so though

20:39

they might not be social with each other

20:42

that some octopus will actually form

20:44

social relationships with other species? Absolutely

20:48

Ed, it depends how you define social but

20:50

they certainly cooperate with other species in

20:52

very fascinating ways. So when you watch an

20:54

octopus hunt on a coral reef it

20:57

will often team up with animals that are very different

20:59

from it to both animals advantage.

21:02

So an octopus is what we call a crevice forager

21:05

and that means it chases fish and other

21:07

animals down into holes in the reef. Do

21:10

you know what I was? I

21:13

wasn't even looking

21:15

at Russell Kane but I heard

21:17

him touching him. Russell's

21:20

made one of his crevice forager faces

21:22

again for me. That was my Tinder name when

21:24

I was single. So

21:30

the octopus hunts things but by

21:32

chasing them down into the reef, down

21:34

into holes and into cracks where they can't

21:36

go anywhere else they're stuck in a dead end and then the

21:38

octopus can just pour itself in after

21:41

them because it's got no skeleton and it can chase them

21:43

down into there. But it's not so good out in

21:45

the open because the octopus isn't a fast animal

21:47

it can't chase anything across open water. So

21:50

what it does is it goes and finds a fast

21:52

predatory fish and they swim around

21:54

the reef together and then the fish have got no chance

21:57

because if the fish bolt upwards for the open water

21:59

then the fast... predators gonna chase them on their toast

22:01

and if the fish starts for cover and tries

22:03

to hide in the reef then the octopus get them. You

22:05

almost feel sorry watching these little fish when

22:07

this octopus and the predatory fish team

22:10

up because there's just nowhere to hide. Is there ever a fight

22:12

between the predatory fish and the octopus about? I'm

22:14

not being funny, but that was my kill when I did it. No,

22:17

because if I'd pulled the graft in I'd

22:19

be pretty annoyed if the predatory fish got it. Well,

22:23

it's a bit of a lottery who gets it, but

22:25

I guess what works for them is that somebody will.

22:27

But they don't fight about it, I mean. They

22:30

do. It turns sour at the end. They were about

22:31

this. Yeah, they observed they were looking

22:33

at this hunting behavior between the fish and the octopuses

22:36

and they noticed that every now and again the octopus would punch

22:38

the fish.

22:39

No, I thought so. This

22:42

is what I was looking for.

22:44

Carry on. But it doesn't attack

22:46

it, it just gives it a... It

22:47

punches it and they were trying to understand

22:49

like why and they were looking at it

22:51

in different contexts and they saw that sometimes that they'd punch

22:53

the fish and then they would get the prey. Which makes sense, like

22:55

get out of my way, I want that prey. But sometimes

22:57

they'd punch the fish and there was no prey around.

23:00

And the researchers were trying to understand, you

23:02

know, maybe it's like a delayed thing or the

23:04

fish then will change its behavior. And the other proposition

23:07

was they're

23:07

just doing it out of spite. Spite and mischief

23:09

against few things in terms of consciousness.

23:12

Why do we think it is that this intelligent

23:15

animal is entirely

23:17

antisocial? Because as you said, it's

23:20

interesting because most animals develop

23:22

intelligence as part of a social structure.

23:25

So could you just talk us through the lifecycle

23:27

of an octopus so that these short lives,

23:29

one or two years, how do they live

23:31

that short life?

23:32

The octopuses are in these little egg

23:34

cases that grow up for a few months

23:37

and then they hatch out. It's different in different

23:39

species, but the one I'm most familiar with is octopus

23:41

vulgaris. It's known as the common octopus. It's

23:44

found in waters almost all

23:46

over the world, usually at coastal locations.

23:49

They hatch out and they're known as a paralarvae. So at

23:51

this point, they look more like a squid and

23:53

then they become benthic, which is a few months

23:56

later. This is when they're mostly spend their time crawling

23:58

around on the sea floor. And

24:00

then they live to be about one and a half, two

24:02

years old. And around that point, they

24:04

start mating. So the males will

24:06

seek out females. And I don't know if we

24:08

want to go into that part. Yeah, what they do.

24:10

Yeah, we're past eight o'clock. And

24:16

don't stop us enjoying that. What happens next?

24:19

So the males will seek out the females.

24:22

As we said, they're very antisocial. So this is one of

24:24

the few times that they come in contact with another

24:27

octopus. And the male is actually very tentative.

24:29

And this scenario, because sometimes if the female's

24:31

hungry, they might decide to eat him.

24:34

I bet you get a few kinky

24:36

ones hanging around. Oh, don't nibble me. I'm

24:39

often bitten again. What a disaster.

24:43

Yeah, the main way that we see

24:45

the difference between males and female octopuses is

24:47

that male octopuses, one of

24:48

their arms is a modified arm, which we call

24:51

a soft arm. Basically,

24:53

it's the way that they. Can

24:56

we just get some science? One

24:59

minute. An interrupt.

25:02

I bought one of those of Amazon. They're not worth them. Right.

25:04

I've got. I'm going to time this. Two minutes of

25:06

octopus sex. No, I'm sorry.

25:08

No, I'm sorry. A sex arm. Without

25:10

interruptions. Scientific term is a hexacautilus. So the male octopus

25:13

comes up to the female octopus and inserts

25:15

the sex arm into

25:16

her siphon,

25:25

which is found just near her head. And

25:27

this is where it's able to deliver these sperm

25:29

packets. The way that this happens more efficiently

25:32

is if they stay together for longer. So usually

25:34

this can last up to an hour. And then

25:36

the male octopus goes off. They

25:38

try and do this with multiple females. Doesn't always

25:40

work out. The female also can try and do

25:42

this with multiple males and then she

25:45

can decide

25:45

later which firm she wants to use. What

25:47

happens to the male? I mean, like, because we've

25:50

seen that, you know, for the female, that's

25:52

basically the end. But do the males just keep going?

25:54

No, they also go through this synensense.

25:57

That's called where they all start to die as well at that

25:59

point. So that's the end of their

26:01

lives. Yeah, essentially live fast.

26:03

I young so she finishes this orgy

26:06

with a selection of sperm I download

26:08

the video Sperm pack is there

26:10

some sort of evaluation of what her progeny

26:13

will be like or is it on Dave sex on

26:15

was massive I'm how would you choose? I don't think

26:17

it's understood, but they're really interesting to

26:19

look into over the last few years actually a

26:21

monkey Cage we've discussed the sex lives

26:24

of many very surprising

26:26

sex lives are often Perilous

26:29

and I think I read that there are

26:31

occasions when the male has to This

26:33

connects his sex arm.

26:36

Yeah and leave it and run

26:38

away So

26:41

what why would that happen what would trigger

26:43

that kind of You're

26:54

working too hard I

26:59

Mean

26:59

it's just I guess the goal in like

27:01

for evolution is just to survive and pass

27:03

on your genetic material

27:05

So losing an arm probably not really that

27:07

bad as long as it's getting into her mantle and

27:09

could potentially be used to fertilize her Eggs, but

27:11

yeah also octopuses have amazing

27:13

capabilities to regenerate their arms as well

27:15

I mean, that's a remarkable thing in itself When

27:17

we think of living things on the planet

27:19

the fact that you've got this very complex organism that

27:22

can regrow Actually in the

27:24

main ways part of its brain So

27:28

what do we know about the processes by which that

27:30

happens is clearly it's

27:32

a research interest

27:33

Yeah, it's been known for quite a while,

27:35

but the field is kind of still

27:37

in its infancy. I guess Yeah, what's amazing

27:39

is obviously as I said? They have lots of

27:41

neurons in their arms

27:42

and they have what's called an axial nerve cord

27:44

that runs down their arm Which is akin to our spinal

27:46

cord and the human

27:49

brain and spinal cord are really bad at regenerating

27:51

neurons They're just very difficult to regenerate because

27:54

neurons obviously make connections with other neurons

27:56

and having to turn that over and make

27:59

the connections again

28:53

the

30:00

base of the arm, then their arms

30:02

not tentacles. Doesn't that go very much though

30:04

down just talking about the arm and leg debate there

30:06

about the fact that we are perhaps sometimes

30:09

forcing too much of our own way of thinking about

30:11

ourselves putting on that particular

30:13

blueprint and then enforcing it on

30:15

other creatures? Well exactly we probably need

30:17

a new word altogether don't we because what they do with them

30:19

is so far removed from what we do with our arms

30:22

but you know they're just completely

30:24

different complex organs. I have to

30:26

ask you as well about The Octopus's Garden,

30:29

not the song but it is based on the story

30:31

that it appears that the octopus will

30:34

collect pebbles and create something which again

30:36

some people will view as not dissimilar

30:38

to creating a garden. So is that

30:41

true or was Ringo lying to me? So

30:44

they do make dens almost all octopuses

30:46

make dens and they do it to protect themselves because

30:49

they're so inherently vulnerable that they've gone

30:51

through this very unusual evolutionary

30:53

process as a mollusk to do away with the shell

30:56

and so they have to have somewhere to hide and

30:58

sometimes they make fixed dens by hiding

31:00

away and pulling in rocks on top of them

31:03

and burrowing deep into the sand but

31:05

sometimes some species can make dens

31:07

that they carry with them. So there's an octopus

31:09

called the coconut octopus which lives in a place

31:12

where there's lots of coconuts knocking around

31:14

and lots of half coconuts left by people who

31:16

eat them, half coconut shells and so

31:18

this octopus will pick up two of those and if

31:21

it's going across an open exposed

31:23

area where it feels threatened it'll carry

31:25

these shells with it so that it can just sort of hide

31:27

inside its coconut if something dangerous

31:30

comes. I bet the hermit crabs are well annoyed that's

31:32

my idea you Nick. I was just

31:34

thinking the hermit crab was going oh my god horses are coming.

31:41

But again that's interesting

31:43

isn't it because it's different to a hermit crab

31:46

you can you can imagine that there's just a there's

31:48

a shell there it uses the shell but

31:51

this this almost seems like it's almost

31:53

like tool use in a sense it's building

31:55

something out of two other parts. It

31:58

is yeah the if we're being strict

32:00

about the definition of tool use

32:02

in biology. It means you need to use

32:04

an inanimate object to interact with

32:07

another animal. So the

32:09

coconut carrying is not quite tool use because

32:11

that's just self-protection. But sometimes

32:13

they pick up stuff and throw them at other

32:15

animals as projectile missiles, and that's

32:18

tool use. Really? Yeah.

32:21

So when something comes and annoys them in their den,

32:23

they can scoop up rocks or gravel, like

32:26

a little ball of it, and then they'll fling it at

32:28

this intruder. And at the same time, they can jet

32:30

water out of their siphon and create this sort

32:32

of water-pistol

32:34

slingshot type system to

32:37

chuck stuff at other animals. This is a question

32:39

to you both. You both study octopuses.

32:42

Do you perceive them as having characters?

32:44

Do you get to know them? Do they behave like

32:46

individuals? Absolutely. Without

32:49

a doubt. Yeah. The octopuses are very

32:51

different from each other. They'll behave very differently,

32:53

different than individual octopuses. And

32:55

you really see that most when they're

32:58

in tanks or in aquariums because you interact with them

33:00

so often. But you see it in the wild as well.

33:03

Because they'll tend to, for short periods

33:05

of time anyway, stay in the same place and around

33:07

the same den, you can sort of get to know

33:10

one octopus on a reef because you'll know that

33:12

in that area, that octopus will be there. And some

33:14

of them are very bold. Some of them are quite

33:16

shy and elusive. Some of them learn

33:19

to hunt or behave in some ways, preferentially

33:21

over others. They're very different from each

33:23

other as individuals. We've talked about this on the show before,

33:26

about the time where you were diving and then you

33:28

basically did have a kind of what for you was

33:30

almost a conversation with an octopus. There

33:33

was certainly what I would consider, you would

33:35

describe it as a conscious connection. Is that fair

33:37

to say? Yes. It's similar. We

33:40

were filming in Florida actually,

33:42

shallow water. And I

33:44

was diving and there was an octopus

33:46

there that was clearly interested, which

33:48

is the first thing. I wasn't expecting

33:51

the fact that this animal would come

33:54

and have a look. And when I settled

33:56

down, then it seemed to me

33:58

at least as I was moving and it was the first thing. if I lifted a

34:00

hand it would lift a leg,

34:03

not tentacle. And I

34:05

did feel very strongly that there was an intelligence

34:08

there. Which is, I suppose, easy to be fooled,

34:11

isn't it? Because we anthropomorphize

34:13

all sorts of things. But from

34:15

what you've said, it wasn't just me wishful

34:17

thinking because I did feel that I was interacting

34:20

with an intelligent animal. Yeah, you're

34:22

right that it is very easy to anthropomorphize

34:25

stuff. But yeah, I think you're also right

34:27

that you have shared a common experience there with

34:29

many, many people around the world who've interacted

34:32

with these animals. People are consistently

34:34

amazed by them and moved by

34:37

them very strongly, these

34:39

interactions with these animals. And it's yeah,

34:43

I think it's because there's such a diversity of experience.

34:45

Most animals you watch will do something and

34:48

maybe they'll have a range of behaviors. But

34:50

it'll be fairly consistent, especially

34:52

once you've spent time with that animal, you sort of

34:55

get to know it quite quickly. Whereas with an octopus,

34:57

it can be surprising you and exhibiting new

35:00

behaviors and teaching you new things for

35:02

a long time. You know, it's a very deep

35:05

relationship you can have with an octopus. And

35:07

I just wanted to go back to that point we've spoken

35:10

about earlier, but the fact that we

35:12

share a common ancestor with cats and

35:14

other mammals and dolphins and all

35:16

the things that we tend to think of as intelligent.

35:19

But the common ancestor of this

35:22

thing is so far back that

35:24

its mind is completely alien

35:27

mind. That's, I guess, the right word. It

35:29

is, it is. And what fascinates me

35:31

is then there's so many experiences that

35:33

feel common despite that. So

35:35

octopuses play, we think that octopuses

35:38

dream. All of these things that we think

35:40

of as being so human are shared

35:43

by an animal that has a common

35:45

ancestor that's about as far as back as it's

35:47

possible to go. Can I ask just about

35:49

that briefly, we think they dream. Why?

35:52

Do we think they dream? So when

35:54

you watch an octopus sleep, then

35:56

it will be changing colors very vividly

35:59

and twitching its limbs, much

36:01

like when you watch a dog sleep. You know, people

36:03

describe watching their dogs run around their baskets

36:05

and yapping, and you know, you'll say, like, it's chasing

36:08

things in its sleep. And we think the same thing is

36:10

going on with octopus in that sleep. Has the

36:13

female octopus wake up and tell the male octopus

36:15

its dream? In

36:18

quite long form. I

36:21

think that's why the male wants to be so far apart

36:23

in the mating thing. Suddenly

36:26

you're brought in the patriarchal structure of the

36:28

octopus. Russell,

36:30

I don't know why I'm going to ask you this, but we'll

36:33

find out when I hear you answer. What's the capital

36:35

of Lictus High? You've heard

36:38

a lot about the different kind of what you might call

36:41

the specialisations and indeed the skills of

36:43

the octopus. Of all of the things that you've heard,

36:46

what's the one that you think, well, I'll

36:48

take that then. That's the one I want to take

36:50

on board now as a human being. You know, you can have any of the things that are

36:52

octopus, but just one. Which one? No,

36:55

don't say that one. And

36:57

not that one either. If anyone

37:00

was not thinking sex harm. Not

37:03

one person. That's the most fascinating

37:05

thing I've heard all night, that they're sort

37:07

of ambiently changing colours

37:10

while they're sleeping. And I think

37:12

I would have that. I would love to change colour while I'm dreaming

37:14

as that would scare the crap out

37:16

of my wife she came in on.

37:18

Changing colours. Is

37:20

that a sort of chromatic

37:22

language? But am I right in thinking that we

37:24

don't think our octopuses see colour,

37:26

certainly in the way that we do? I think it's a bit more

37:28

complex than that. So they have one

37:31

type of colour receptor in their

37:33

eye where we have three. And that's how we

37:35

see colour, because different colours will excite our

37:38

three different types of colour receptor

37:40

differently. The octopus just

37:42

has one. And if you jump to conclusions too

37:44

quickly, then you say then it can't sense colour. But

37:47

there's two possible mechanisms by which it might be

37:49

able to. The first is through its skin.

37:51

So it also has options that can sense

37:54

light and sense colour in its skin. And

37:56

the second is through a process by which it

37:59

refracts light. as it comes into its

38:01

eyeball. So by changing the shape of its

38:03

pupil, it's able to sort of split white

38:06

lights, people think, into its different colors.

38:09

And then the same type of color

38:11

receptor is able to sense

38:13

a different wavelength of light based on what's coming through

38:16

the pupil. So it doesn't see

38:18

color in the same way that we do, but I think

38:20

it's too overly simplistic to say it doesn't see

38:22

color. This goes back to what you said at the start, Amy.

38:25

The idea that this animal is sensing

38:28

its environment in ways that we can't really

38:30

imagine are comprehending, it is fascinating,

38:32

as you said, to imagine what its internal world,

38:36

its picture of the world, its internal life

38:38

is like, because it's so radically different.

38:40

Yeah, absolutely. That would be one of my first questions, it's like,

38:42

what do you see? Like, what does it look

38:44

like? Does it react different to different colors

38:47

in the laboratories? It's like, if you hold up a bright

38:49

red, does it consistently have a reaction

38:52

across different octopuses or were

38:54

they yellow or green? One big function is

38:56

to disguise itself, right? Like it can match

38:58

almost any color and it can match

39:00

almost any texture as well. So as well

39:02

as changing its color to what's behind

39:05

it, it changes its texture. And that's this amazing

39:07

thing to see where it's got these sort of folds in its

39:09

skin that are called papillae. And

39:11

they sort of can go really smooth

39:14

if it's on a smooth background and then they'll go all sort

39:16

of warty and knobbly and

39:18

it can blend in with all sorts of different textures as

39:20

well as colors. So yeah, it responds very differently. We

39:23

asked the audience a question, which is, which

39:25

animal do you think knows more than

39:27

we imagined and why? What

39:30

have you got, Ron? The drummer with the Muppets. Because

39:34

he also plays a mean concert piano and

39:36

harpsichord. I've got a chicken

39:39

because they know if they came first

39:41

or the egg. I've

39:44

got Larry the Downing Street cat because

39:46

he'll have seen off five prime ministers. Perfect.

39:51

I think it's actually six now, isn't it? This

39:55

is a paranoid one here. Squirrels, because

39:57

they're plotting with the ducks. Species

40:01

Corporation. Mrs

40:04

Tiggy Winkle. She's been for

40:06

everyone's dirty laundry. I've

40:11

got a remix. Octopuses,

40:13

in fact, I think they're so clever that humans will eventually

40:16

start dating them. After all, flings

40:18

can only get wetter. Right,

40:23

so, thank you very much to everyone for

40:25

their answers. Given what you've heard though, would

40:27

you date an octopus? It sounds

40:30

extremely dangerous. I'd watch Octopus

40:32

Love Island. Not

40:35

only would I think you'd watch Octopus Love Island, I

40:37

think you'd also present the reunion of Octopus

40:39

Love Island. I don't know, can we look at the muscles

40:41

on that? Can I ask one more

40:43

question that occurs to me? Could you say that they're completely

40:46

solitary? How long did little babies stay together? How

40:48

many are born?

40:51

So, there can be around 100,000 of these babies,

40:53

yeah. One

40:55

study saw 600,000, that was the most they've ever seen.

40:57

But

40:59

yeah, in around 100,000. And how much

41:01

of that? What's the odds?

41:03

So, this is an approach in biology

41:05

where when there's a low survival rate, you just

41:07

make a lot of babies and hope for the best.

41:09

Yeah. The

41:13

problem isn't it? Because if more... They're

41:15

not all surviving. If three or four

41:17

survive, then suddenly we've got an octopus

41:19

problem. It doesn't always work that math, though.

41:22

But how many do survive? How many emerge from the net? It

41:24

depends year to year. And what that means is

41:26

that the populations of octopuses can be quite difficult

41:28

to track. Because if they have a good year, and

41:31

a tiny fraction more than usual survive, a

41:33

tiny fraction more than usual out of hundreds

41:36

of thousands is a lot. And so last year

41:38

in Cornwall, we had an octopus boom,

41:40

they called it. You know, octopuses are usually

41:42

quite rare in Cornwall, they're not seen that often.

41:45

But loads of people were seeing them all over the place. Fishermen

41:47

were complaining that they were stealing fish

41:49

and stuff out of their traps. But it's very unusual. So

41:52

there was some environmental condition

41:54

that year that meant that more of these

41:56

babies than normal survived. And the population

41:58

skyrocketed briefly. Thank you very

42:01

much to our panel, Amy Courtney, Tim Lamont and

42:03

of course from Geordie Shaw the Reunion, Russ and Kate.

42:06

I'm so sorry. Well next week

42:08

though, our show is about the mathematics

42:10

of coincidences and luck and

42:13

why there's no such thing in a deterministic

42:15

universe. So it'll be the same, same as

42:17

every week then. Welcome to the Monkey Cage,

42:20

the wonderful and mysterious crushed by physics.

42:22

Goodbye. Goodbye.

42:30

It's

42:34

not that nice again.

42:42

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43:48

implants. And when bioexists

43:50

consider these innovations, they return

43:53

to the same question. Just

43:55

because we can do something, does it

43:57

mean we should?

43:57

And who gets to make these kinds of

43:59

decisions? Playing God

44:01

is a new podcast about the complex

44:03

decisions made in medicine and

44:06

public health and the implications they have

44:08

for our everyday lives. Listen

44:10

to Playing God.