Wanted: A Smart, Gregarious Octopus To...

[randomness]

From http://bobisbankrupt.com/2009/03/02/wanted-a-smart-gregarious-octopus-to/:

The staff of Santa Monica’s Pier Aquarium was surprised early last week when they arrived at work to discover one of their residents had flooded the facility:

They blame the soaking they discovered Tuesday morning on the aquarium’s resident two-spotted octopus, a tiny female known for being curious and gregarious with visitors. The octopus apparently tugged on a valve and that allowed hundreds of gallons of water to overflow its tank.

Octopuses are curious, intelligent creatures that show evidence of short and long-term memory in maze and problem-solving experiments:

In laboratory experiments, octopuses can be readily trained to distinguish between different shapes and patterns. They have been reported to practice observational learning, although the validity of these findings is widely contested on a number of grounds. Octopuses have also been observed in what some have described as play: repeatedly releasing bottles or toys into a circular current in their aquariums and then catching them. Octopuses often break out of their aquariums and sometimes into others in search of food. They have even boarded fishing boats and opened holds to eat crabs.

In our desperate economic times, such intelligence, talent and drive cannot go wasted.

Why not train the Santa Monica octopus to run a major American bank?

bobisbankrupt goes on to make give some compelling reasons to put an octopus in charge of a bank.

I mean, could octopuses do worse than current management?


This image provided by Heal the Bay shows a two-spotted octopus, a tiny female known for being curious and gregarious with visitors, and believed to be responsible for causing a tank leak at the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium on Tuesday Feb. 24, 2009 in Santa Monica, Calif.

Comments

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

This sounds far better, and far much more fun, than day trading plants.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Do you mean that people were trading shares in plants, or that the plants were trading securities?

Never mind. I look forward to hearing about it in person.

[pumpkin-pi.livejournal.com]

Oh, but they can be ornery creatures! (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3328480/Otto-the-octopus-wrecks-havoc.html)

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

bedfull_o_books loves Otto!

I couldn't understand why they didn't just put the light on a timer.

[skreeky]

I had no idea about octopi until I met the one in Manly (AU) that quite decidedly Did Not Like Me. Totally freaked me out.

I had been perplexed by the lack of "no flash" signs at this aquarium, and all the people taking flash pictures of the poor fish. I was not using flash, just the occasional LED for macro shots against the glass. I approached the octopus tank and readied my camera.

The octopus turned saw my camera, GLARED at me, and STOMPED away. I thought, "Dang, it moved."

I repositioned and readied again. It GLARED, and STOMPED away. I thought, "It can't be reacting to me."

I repositioned. It GLARED, STOMPED to the corner of the tank, and buried itself partway in the sand.

I followed. It GLARED, picked up a rock bigger than its own body, placed it on its head like a hat, turned away from me, and defiantly pretended I wasn't there.

We were floored. We had never seen anything in an aquarium react to anyone on the other side of the glass, period.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

That is a *great* story.

[skreeky]

In a fit of nostalgia, I was going thru those aquarium pics and I actually did get a somewhat blurry shot of Mr. Angrypus before he put the rock on his head.

Must be Octopus Day.

[skreeky]

Also in today's news:



What is 7 feet long, weighs 30 pounds, has eight arms and fits in a box slightly larger than a milk crate?