Too clever by half

We are all used to the idea that large mammals (such as horses, dogs, elephants, dolphins or
gorillas) and some birds (such as crows and ravens) are intelligent. But some people find it
harder to believe that octopuses too are among the most intelligent animals. Should it be so
surprising? After all, zookeepers or divers often have stories about octopuses with playful
personalities. And scientific experiments have shown again and again that octopuses are
intelligent. They learn quickly, can solve puzzles (like finding their way in a maze) and
remember solutions. And, perhaps most intriguing of all, octopuses experience deep sleep -
something that scientists once thought was unique to mammals and birds. That means it's
possible that octopuses dream too.

So, there's no doubt about it - octopuses are pretty smart. But the big question is why?
There are several reasons why octopus intelligence is a mystery to many biologists. Firstly,
biologists believe that intelligent animals such as chimpanzees and dolphins develop large,
complex brains because they live in complex social groups and need to understand each
other. Octopuses live alone. Secondly, other intelligent animals have long childhoods when
they can learn from their parents. Such animals also generally live for quite a long time, so
having a big brain is a good investment. Baby octopuses lose contact with their parents almost
immediately after birth and then they only live for six months to a year. Why does an animal
with such a short, solitary life need such a large brain? Finally, octopuses are molluscs -
cousins to snails, oysters and mussels, quite 'primitive' animals, which appeared on Earth
millions of years before mammals did. Generally, biologists believe that intelligence
increases as you go higher up the tree of evolution - from fish and amphibians to reptiles,
birds, mammals, early primates and finally humans. With their big brains, octopuses don't
seem to fit this theory at all. They almost seem to be aliens, a strange mystery of the animal
world. It's easy to understand why in Hawaiian folklore, people thought that the octopus was
actually the last survivor of a lost universe.

One theory suggests that octopuses and humans perhaps have a lot in common. Like early
humans, octopuses are physically much weaker than their predators. They have soft,
naked bodies and they can't swim as fast as the many fish and sharks which hunt them. Like
early humans, they live in a changeable and dangerous environment. This is why octopuses
spend much of their time hiding between rocks or in holes, just as humans learned to make
their homes in caves. Octopuses have learned some very effective techniques for hunting for
food and this means that an octopus spends very little of its time (on average just seven
percent) looking for food. Just like humans learned to. But what do they think about as they
hide away in their holes? Perhaps the cruel turns of evolution, which have left them with large,
playful brains but living alone in the dark at the bottom of the ocean ...