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  • Do we know why this species evolved to be social when most octopuses are solitary?
  • What happens when they find even bigger ones?
  • Quite confusing how the referenced paper [1] juxtaposes Guatemala, Panama, and the (British) Columbia region of Canada.

    Unless they actually meant Colombia. But peer review would certainly catch that.

    [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4534201/

  • Something about seeing "gregarious nature" used to describe a non-human animal feels so... whimsical? I like it. Likewise with "intimate embrace" and other descriptions that follow.
  • I've been fascinated by Cephalopods since reading (the excellent) book "Other Minds" by Peter Godfrey-Smith. They are probably the closest we'll get to an alien intelligence. Their nervous systems evolved along a completely different evolutionary path from us vertebrates. It pains me that they are so short lived, though. I wonder what potential could be unlocked by their intelligence if they lived for 40 years or longer.
  • One critical feature of these octopuses is that they don't just die after mating (most species of octopus do)... Which opens up possibilities, like teaching their young skills they have acquired.
  • > The species was first documented in the 1970s and, being fairly new to scientific observation, has yet to be scientifically described. Because of this, LPSO has no official scientific name.

    Is that a joke? It takes over 50 years to come up with a scientific name for a species?

  • Irony: Nowhere on that page does it say how large that octopus actually is. An inch? 2 meters? Unclear.

    To save you the google search, it's about "tennis ball size" according to https://30a.com/larger-pacific-striped-octopus/ . Somebody should add that to the wiki.

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