"To be honest I'm not sure who won."

April 11, 2016 8:55 PM

Two octopuses throw down over property. Cool soundtrack. (SLYT)
posted by Johnny Wallflower (41 comments total)

"Yeah? Yeah? Who looks like this rock now??!?"
"You don't even look a little like this rock! You don't deserve this rock!"
*tentacle frenzy*
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:59 PM on April 11, 2016 [6 favorites]

That is like Scanners: Deep Sea Edition.
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:02 PM on April 11, 2016

I liked the long-arm-in-the-face move when the other octopus came up from behind - "Yeah, nope, I see you back there." *paf*
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:07 PM on April 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Reminds me of Yo La Tengo scoring Jean Painleve's underwater documentaries. Super awesome show to see live btw.
posted by thecjm at 9:09 PM on April 11, 2016

Those squids were fast as lightning
posted by moonmilk at 9:10 PM on April 11, 2016 [13 favorites]

Here we go. Found it.
posted by thecjm at 9:11 PM on April 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Are we sure that was actual fighting? I couldn't tell WHAT that was besides the backslap.

Also, fugliest octopi ever.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:53 PM on April 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

The fans win.
posted by mazola at 10:05 PM on April 11, 2016 [4 favorites]

Are we sure that was actual fighting? I couldn't tell WHAT that was besides the backslap.

Yeah, I was wondering if it was mating, since the males pass a sperm packet to the females with a modified arm.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 10:28 PM on April 11, 2016

Also, I always loved the self-cleaning with the wiggly arms demonstrated at 1:08. I bet that feels sooo good.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 10:32 PM on April 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

At the end, that octopus is like, "How much more black could I be? And the answer is none. None more black."
posted by smcameron at 11:00 PM on April 11, 2016 [29 favorites]

Even octopuses have their Goth phase.
posted by benito.strauss at 11:24 PM on April 11, 2016 [5 favorites]

Watching octopi, I always feel like if evolution had rolled the dice just a little differently, they could be the ruling intelligence on this planet. Which is sort of thrilling to contemplate.

Very cool video, thank you for posting.
posted by sively at 11:30 PM on April 11, 2016 [8 favorites]

Watching octopi, I always feel like if evolution had rolled the dice just a little differently, they could be the ruling intelligence on this planet. Which is sort of thrilling to contemplate.

THERE'S STILL TIME, CEPHALOPODS
GET ON IT
posted by town of cats at 11:48 PM on April 11, 2016 [7 favorites]

Even octopuses have their Goth phase.

Not quite octopus, but Blixa Bargeld's calamari risotto comes close.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 11:51 PM on April 11, 2016 [2 favorites]

Also, I always loved the self-cleaning with the wiggly arms demonstrated at 1:08. I bet that feels sooo good.

Yes! Last weekend I took my wife, who adores octopuses, to the National Aquarium in Baltimore for a custom behind the scenes tour/octopus encounter as a Christmas present. The octopus (Lorelei) was wonderfuland we got to play with her tentacles and let her be inquisitive at us for fifteen minutes or so which was fantastic. I was really struck by how delicate her tentacles were at the end and how much control there was over the individual suckers only to become big and powerful as she, inevitably, got the larger tentacles wrapped around you. When we were done, she withdrew to what seemed to be her favorite corner (we went back to see her from the outside of the tank several more times that day) and began self cleaning, just like we washed her hands when were done! It was if she was saying "that was fun, but I need to get these strange human germs off me now."

*The aquarist's advice was "don't let her get two tentacles on you, she got three on me once during a tour and I had to call for backup"
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 3:19 AM on April 12, 2016 [29 favorites]

Yeah, you don't want an octopus going Hokusai on you.
posted by Segundus at 3:37 AM on April 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Needs the Star Trek fight music.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:15 AM on April 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

[octopus (n.) 1758, genus name of a type of eight-armed cephalopod mollusk, from Greek oktopous, literally "eight-footed," from okto "eight" + pous "foot," from PIE root *ped- (1) "a foot." Proper plural is octopodes, though octopuses probably works better in English. Octopi (1817) is from mistaken assumption that -us in this word is the Latin noun ending that takes -i in plural.]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 4:56 AM on April 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

oh man

so awesome to watch them change color!

The big wow for me, though, is that the "brain" is more like a lung. It's in the brain place but it's clearly breathing! It's kind of more like a big silly nose.
posted by rebent at 5:16 AM on April 12, 2016

Octopus not an actual space alien, but still pretty fucking weird, say evolutionary boffins.

I always wanted to post a headline using the word "boffins"
posted by briank at 5:49 AM on April 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

I highly recommend The Soul Of An Octopus to anyone interested in learning more about cephalopod intelligence.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:58 AM on April 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

Bulgaroktonos, that sounds AMAZING. Was it one of these tours, or something else? http://www.aqua.org/visit/immersion-tours
posted by armacy at 6:01 AM on April 12, 2016

Yes! It was a custom tour, listed in the bottom right. A heads up that it wasn't cheap (not giving the actual price here since it was a gift), although some of that was that you have to pay for six guests minimum even if you're only bringing two.

Also, my wife and I are having a baby in three months and this felt like a last chance to just spend money on real personal indulgence.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 6:08 AM on April 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

Oh, how I wish I could conclude an argument by turning charcoal black and retreating ominously into the shadows.
posted by kinnakeet at 6:24 AM on April 12, 2016 [31 favorites]

I have been trolled by an octopus.

I was nine. Maybe ten. Old enough to describe an event. It was probably my birthday. Plymouth aquarium was expensive, and a fair drive.

I was looking at a common octopus (O. vuklgaris). It was, I swear, looking at me. It was sitting on the sand at the bottom of its tank. I tried interacting with it. Slowly placing my hand on the glass. Trying to make my fingers move like prawns.

It didn't do much. Until I stood up. Then, it's skin pulsed with a wave of colour change. SO COOL!

I was nine, but not stupid. I looked around for my friends. They were all engrossed with the sharks. I looked back at the octopus.

As I looked back at it, it recoloured itself ivory white on one side and midnight black on the other. Straight down the centre, black and white.

I went off like a nine-year-old would.

No-one believed me.

I don't eat octopus.
posted by Combat Wombat at 7:09 AM on April 12, 2016 [12 favorites]

Watching octopi, I always feel like if evolution had rolled the dice just a little differently, they could be the ruling intelligence on this planet. Which is sort of thrilling to contemplate.

The secret is to bang the rocks together, guys.
posted by Naberius at 7:13 AM on April 12, 2016 [9 favorites]

I intellectually understand that the arms thing at 1:08 was self-cleaning, but emotionally, I am convinced that it was the "pretending to make out with yourself" thing.
posted by rmless at 7:37 AM on April 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

I scuba dive pretty much as much as I can and I'm super envious of all these people who get film of octopuses out and about during the daylight.

Here, in SoCal, if I see them at all during the day it's just a portion of a tentacle with maybe an eye poking out above it from deep inside a crevasse or hole.

One of the reasons I love to night dive is because that's when the octopuses come out and you can see them run around and pretend to be rocks.

Which has led me to believe that octopuses are at least a bit self delusional. Several times I've been 3 or 4 inches from an octopus in the near pitch black, cold water, with my light shining directly at it. Nevertheless the octopus will stay nearly stock still thinking as hard as it can, "It thinks I'm a rock. It thinks I'm a rock. It thinks I'm a rock."

Well, octopus, I don't think you're a rock. I think you're just adorbs!
posted by bswinburn at 8:12 AM on April 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

Reminds me of my first marriage.
posted by Bob Regular at 8:27 AM on April 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

Instead of genetically engineering corn and other boring things, why don't scientists get to work on the good stuff? Spider goat milk and glowing cats are all very well, but now we want to see human babies with octopus color change genes.
posted by BlueHorse at 8:42 AM on April 12, 2016 [3 favorites]

now we want to see human babies with octopus color change genes.

Or not see them, as their whims may dictate.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:47 AM on April 12, 2016 [7 favorites]

Octopus not an actual space alien, but still pretty fucking weird, say evolutionary boffins.

They could be alien-mollusk hybrids leftover from a failed colonization effort.
posted by cosmic.osmo at 8:51 AM on April 12, 2016

Motile molluscs predate the Cambrian Explosion. Their lineage is ooooooold.
posted by Slap*Happy at 11:29 AM on April 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

now we want to see human babies with octopus color change genes

Until then...pink, blue, pink and yellow. And purple.
posted by Beti at 11:51 AM on April 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

We encountered an octopus last week as we were walking the dog beside the harbour. The tide was getting quite low and I looked across the exposed silt to see a strange little blobby thing poking up from the very shallow water. I went to have a closer look and it turned out to be an octopus about the size of my hand, seemingly about to be stranded by the receding water. It was actually hauling itself slowly across the silt with its tentacles, sort of like a swimmer doing freestyle (if they had several more arms).

My wife rolled up her trouser legs and squelched out to rescue it, picking it up and moving it to deeper water. As soon as it was fully submerged it changed to a less stressed colour and jetted off to hide. We watched it for a few moments as it moved further out, changing colour (and texture!) to match the rocks on the bottom. Very cool experience.
posted by Miss Otis' Egrets at 7:44 PM on April 12, 2016 [6 favorites]

...thinking to itself, "OMG THEY PROBED ME I GOT PROBED"
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:49 PM on April 12, 2016 [2 favorites]

In other octopus news: Inky the Octopus and the great escape (with bonus pedantry in the comments regarding the proper plural of octopuserii)
posted by Miss Otis' Egrets at 3:33 AM on April 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Thanks for pointing me to the comments. I now know that one of my superpowers is hypercorrection.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:30 AM on April 13, 2016

Inky the octopus legs it to freedom from aquarium
posted by orrnyereg at 9:26 AM on April 13, 2016

I really do like octopuses, but there's something about the images in that Inky video that gives me a deep shudder.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:32 AM on April 13, 2016