The researchers noticed that the animals were frequently using their approximately 6-inch-long (15-centimeter-long) tentacles to carry coconut shells bigger than their roughly 3-inch-wide (8-centimeter-wide) bodies.
An octopus would dig up the two halves of a coconut shell, then use them as protective shielding when stopping in exposed areas or when resting in sediment.
This, on its own, astonished the team. Then they noticed that the octopuses, after using the coconut shells, would arrange them neatly below the centers of their bodies and “walk” around with the shells—awkwardly. Matt Kaplan para National Geographic News, “Bizarre” Octopuses Carry Coconuts as Instant Shelters
Por favor, prestad mucha atención a este vídeo. También lo podéis ver en BBC News (Rebecca Morelle, Octopus snatches coconut and runs), RTVE.es (América Valenzuela, Descubren pulpos que usan cocos como escudos contra los depredadores). Aún hay más. En este vídeo (un fragmento de las aventuras de Otto C. Honegger) el muy bandido corretea no con una sino con dos cáscaras, en un plis-plas se transforma en bolita y rueda feliz por el fondo del mar. Por si fuera poco, otro pulpo que coge carrerilla.
La conducta tan divertida de este pulpo (Amphioctopus marginatus) la descubrió por casualidad el biólogo Julian Finn del Museo Victoria en Melbourne y del departamento de Zoología de la Universidad La Trobe en Bundoora. La revista Current Biology ha publicado su estudio.
The use of tools has become a benchmark for cognitive sophistication. Originally regarded as a defining feature of our species, tool-use behaviours have subsequently been revealed in other primates and a growing spectrum of mammals and birds [1]. Among invertebrates, however, the acquisition of items that are deployed later has not previously been reported. We repeatedly observed soft-sediment dwelling octopuses carrying around coconut shell halves, assembling them as a shelter only when needed. Whilst being carried, the shells offer no protection and place a requirement on the carrier to use a novel and cumbersome form of locomotion — ‘stilt-walking’.Defensive tool use in a coconut-carrying octopus, Current Biology, Volume 19, Issue 23, R1069-R1070, 15 December 2009
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