Posted on 12/21/2008 3:44:04 PM PST by Clint Williams
Whiteox writes about an Australian researcher named Renata Pronk, who has discovered that octopuses prefer HDTV. She recruited 32 gloomy octopuses from the waters of Chowder Bay. Previously, researchers have reported little success when showing video to octopuses. Miss Pronk's insight was that the octopus eye is so refined that it might see standard PAL video, at 25 fps, as a series of stills. She tried HDTV (50 fps) and her subjects reacted to the videos of a crab, another octopus, or a swinging bottle on the end of a string. A further discovery is that octopuses show no trait of individual personalities, even though they exhibit a high level of intelligence. It would certainly be possible to quibble about the definition of "personality" employed, and whether Miss Pronk had successfully measured it.
I disagree with the finding they have no personality , I have kept Octopi and each one have there own very distinct personality and there moods can be manipulated through colored lights red= aggression ,yellow = very passive
These ‘octopi’ were all Obama voters, weren’t they?
ping
Renata Pronk == Ornate Prank
lol!! It sounds like something a prisoner would do.
These stories are so funny and amazing!
Aw! That makes me want to never eat calamari, although just the concept is pretty unappetizing to me, cause I don’t like meat to begin with, and rubbery circular ‘meat’ is even less appealing... LOL @ the Lovecraft reference, though, that was vaguely going through my mind as I was reading this thread =P
...culprit was an octopus...
&&&
Sounds like personality to me.
Some years ago, at the Indianapolis Zoo, keepers kept losing fish from some tanks and finally discovered that the octopus was slipping out of his tank at night — the lid was flush with the floor — walking to other tanks and helping himself to snacks of fish.
A helpful octopus!
I read about a study in which they put two octopi in a tank divided by a transparent panel. Octopus A was given a corked bottle with food in it. It took him many tries, but he was eventually able to get to the goodies and eat them. It wasn’t long before A was immediately successful at opiening the bottle.
All the while, Octopus B was just watching as this, and the researchers were sure that he was intently observing. Sure enough, when given the chance, B jumped right in and was able to open the bottle immediately using A’s technique. Repetitions of the experiment led the team to propose that the octopus is the most intelligent invertebrate.
"Octopus" is of Greek derivation. The plural is "octopodes", not "octopi".
(snip)
Aurora began her long march toward motherhood last May when she was introduced to J-1, a long-in-the-tentacle bachelor. To the delight of aquarists, the two hit it off, flashing colors and retreating to a dark corner of the center's "Denizens of the Deep" display.
A month later, Aurora laid tens of thousands of eggs. Her sense of mothering was strong, despite the fact that her eggs didn't appear to develop and aquarists eventually believed they were sterile.
Day in and day out, she sucked in water through her mantle and sent waves of cleansing water over the eggs. She defended them against hungry sea cucumbers and starfish.
She continued to tend her eggs even after J-1, who had been removed from her tank for crankiness, died of old age in September.
Aurora didn't even give up in December when aquarists — convinced the eggs weren't fertile — began draining her 3,600-gallon tank. As the water went down and she was going down with it, she sprayed her eggs, now exposed and drying on a rock....
Calamari is squid. They are mean and stupid. Eat up! ;)
While I can't speak to the significance of having gloomy octopi, I can understand why... Just imagine being an octopus in this experiment...
"Here I am in a tank, captured by the species that invented 'Sigmund and the Sea Monsters!'"
Mark
So the plural of "hippopotamus" is what? "Hippopotamodes?"
Renata Pronk.
NOT guilty!
Maybe I won’t be tempted to eat Octupus or Squid again. Never liked it much, but ate some. Maybe enough.
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