Octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish are surprisingly smart for invertebrates. Researchers are gaining some insights into how intelligence helps them:
It’s not clear why cephalopods — octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish — are unusually intelligent among invertebrates. One thesis worth considering is that they don’t have shells. Constantly assessing information from their environment is more important to them than it would be to, say, clams and oysters that can simply filter food from flowing water and shut their shells when danger threatens. Also, as ScienceDaily notes, “Without exception all cephalopods are active predators and the ability to locate and capture prey often demands some sort of reasoning power.” Well, anyway, cleverness.
Just how the cephalopods became intelligent is an open question. Many life forms might be better off to be more intelligent but they aren’t. But then, questions like these are part of what makes science fun.
Denyse O’Leary, “Cuttlefish have good memories, even in old age” at Mind Matters News
Takehome: Cuttlefish are cephalopods and many types of cephalopod show a number of intelligent characteristics which we are only beginning to investigate
You may also wish to read: Octopuses get emotional about pain, research suggests. The smartest of invertebrates, the octopus, once again prompts us to rethink how we understand the origin of intelligence. The brainy cephalopods behaved about the same as lab rats under similar conditions, raising both neuroscience and ethical issues.
Scientists clash over why octopuses are smart New findings show, the brainy seafood breaks all the rules about why some life forms are smart. For many years, we’ve been trying to understand why the octopus is uniquely smart among cephalopods. Research answers some questions only to raise others, as a recent controversy shows.
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“What neuroscientists now know about how memories are born and die” Where, exactly are our memories? Are modern media destroying them? Could we erase them if we wanted to?