Original subtitles

[water trickling]

[narrator] Beneath the waves,

lives a mysterious creature,

older than the dinosaurs.

Octopus!

So incredibly alien.

Changing color in an instant.

Shapeshifting into almost anything.

They are the planet's true masters of disguise.

Now we're discovering,

they are one of the most intelligent beings

on the planet.

Two years immersed in their world,

reveals they use tools.

I felt completely shocked at the level of sophistication

that I was witnessing.

[narrator] Think creatively.

Communicate with other species.

And maybe even dream.

I wonder sometimes if the octopuses are dreaming about me,

wondering what I am, who I am.

[narrator] We're just beginning to understand

what they have to tell us.

I have just had a conversation with an octopus.

[♪ theme music plays]

[narrator] Deep beneath the ocean's surface,

a female giant Pacific octopus,

guards her eggs inside a hidden cave.

She won't leave them, even to eat.

They need her protection.

She's been caring for them for over seven months.

Slowly starving to death.

Keeping her babies safe,

will be the last thing she'll ever do.

This tiny octopus, about the size of a grain of rice,

will head out into the world alone.

Never knowing its mother or siblings.

Octopuses are nature's ultimate loners.

Or so, scientists thought.

National Geographic Explorer Dr. Alex Schnell

has spent years studying Animal Psychology.

She believes octopuses are more social than we realize.

[Dr. Alex Schnell] When you spend time with an octopus,

you get the feeling that they're as curious about you

as you are about them.

[narrator] Over many hours of diving in Northern Australia,

she's gained the trust

of a shy female day octopus.

[Dr. Alex Schnell] There was a moment between us

where she must have decided that I wasn't a threat to her

and let me follow her around.

[narrator] Alex has even given her a name.

[Dr. Alex Schnell] She'd had a little scar below her eye

and that's how I named her Scarlett.

[narrator] Although she might accept Alex,

octopuses like Scarlett are usually wary of their own kind.

[Dr. Alex Schnell] They're essentially lone rangers.

In fact, octopuses that bump into each other

will often either mate, eat each other, or both.

[narrator] So, when another day octopus approaches Scarlett,

Alex is concerned.

[Dr. Alex Schnell] I was so nervous.

Because you never know how these things are gonna turn out.

[narrator] They size each other up,

both darken their skin color,

often a sign of aggression.

Scarlett needs to work out what the intruder wants.

And there's only one way to do that.

[Dr. Alex Schnell] The really strange thing about day octopuses

is that they have to touch each other

to figure out what the other one wants.

[narrator] Scarlett uses her suckers,

25 times more sensitive than a human fingertip,

to shake hands with the stranger.

He's a male, looking for a mate.

Scarlett's not interested.

But he won't give up.

Scarlett's in trouble.

If he gets his arms tight around her,

she could be suffocated.

[♪ tense music]

[Dr. Alex Schnell] It was such a relief to watch her break free.

[narrator] With social interactions so dangerous,

it's easy to see why an octopus-like Scarlett

would choose to be alone.

But she seems perfectly content to hang out with Alex.

[Dr. Alex Schnell] I can form a social bond with an octopus

so, maybe this idea that they're complete loners isn't true.

[narrator] There's growing evidence that octopuses are

using their intelligence to weigh up who to get close to.

They're not anti-social, just discerning!

Especially when it comes to the opposite sex.

To understand how octopuses choose

who to spend their time with,

we need to look at their dating habits.

In Indonesia, the love life of one octopus

is helping to rewrite the rulebook on their relationships.

[squirting]

Trapped in his den by low tide,

this male algae octopus can't wait to be free.

Because when the water rises,

he goes looking for romance.

Since he only comes out of his den a few hours a day,

he needs to fast-track it.

Luckily, his zip code means mates aplenty.

But all the local octopuses

are making the most of high tide.

It's octopus speed-dating!

[♪ curious music]

It's a social situation so unusual,

marine biologist Dr. Christine Huffard

has been studying it for two decades.

[Dr. Christine Huffard] The algae octopus

interact frequently, many times a day.

But the more I watch the algae octopus the more questions I have

about what really drives these social interactions.

[narrator] Could this closely packed arena be the reason

algae octopuses break the mold when it comes to socializing?

The young male has spotted a female.

But a more experienced striped rival gets there first.

His extended arm is an open invitation to mate.

Our young male is prepared to fight for her.

[♪ intense music]

The males wrestle,

each of their eight arms moving independently,

it's the ultimate showdown.

[♪ anticipatory music]

But it's more than just a physical fight,

it's intelligence gathering.

It learns its rank among the other neighbors around it

and what resources it might be able to take.

What it can get away with behaviorally.

What it needs to fight for.

[narrator] These octopuses are not only living together,

they're getting smarter because of it.

It's social learning.

And scientists didn't know wild octopuses could do it.

The young male is still on his quest for love.

But now, he's got a new strategy.

Best to go for a female who's not already taken.

He starts the conversation.

His tens of thousands of color-changing skin cells,

send a message.

Scientists call this "Passing Cloud display."

[♪ magical music]

Her reply looks promising.

He moves in.

[♪ tango music]

[Dr. Christine Huffard] He sticks up his papillae over his eye,

which is a little finger-like, fleshy projection.

He looks as big as he can be.

He's got a white background with a big black stripe

that says I will either fight you or mate with you.

[narrator] His come-on has done the trick.

He extends his specialized mating arm.

Its modified tip will deliver a packet of sperm.

If he can just find the right spot.

Nope, still not it!

But she's getting impatient and hungry.

He's gotten this far, so if she wants to go hunting,

he'll hang on.

Mating on the move.

It's been a steep learning curve for this little guy.

But his decision to interact with others,

whether fighting, communicating, or mating,

has made him smarter,

and, more successful.

But is the algae octopus a one-off?

Christine thinks not.

We might learn that there are other social octopuses

out there, that it's maybe not as uncommon as we think.

[narrator] Algae octopuses are forced to interact,

but there are places where octopuses

choose to come together.

Over 100 miles off the coast of Costa Rica.

And nearly two miles beneath the surface of the ocean,

in one of the most extreme environments on Earth,

a team of scientists made a remarkable discovery.

A brand-new species.

Nicknamed the Dorado octopus,

but so new to science,

they're yet to be given an official name.

And they didn't just find a few,

they found over 100.

Almost all are females, caring for their eggs.

This is one of only four deep-sea octopus nurseries

known to exist on our planet.

What attracts so many moms-to-be to this particular spot?

A deep-sea spring,

where warm water flows out of cracks in the sea floor.

Speeding up the development of their eggs.

Being so close to each other is a price worth paying.

These moms will be down here together, for almost two years,

as their babies grow.

Each tiny hatchling a symbol of their mutual tolerance.

Scientists believe more sites like this remain undiscovered.

There could be thousands of octopus putting their differences aside

to secure the next generation.

But what happens when octopuses of different species meet?

[birds cawing]

Dr. Alex Schnell has heard that underneath this unassuming pier,

something highly unusual is happening.

The action happens at night.

[splashing]

[♪ mysterious music]

[Dr. Alex Schnell] I only have the tiny light from my torch

to guide me.

[bubbles]

You have this eerie feeling

as you're moving through the water.

[♪ mysterious music]

I noticed two little eyes popping out.

And it's a pale octopus.

She comes out, and

we have this wonderful moment where

her suckers touch my gloved hand.

It felt like she was inviting me to go on a swim with her.

[narrator] The pale octopus leads Alex to an up-cycled

artificial reef created by divers.

It may not look like much,

but it offers octopuses everything they need

to feel at home.

They are everywhere.

Peeking back at Alex from every cubby hole.

But that's not the only thing that caught Alex's attention.

[Dr. Alex Schnell] Normally, I'd see about one or two octopuses

and they're usually of the same species.

But down here you have about 100 individuals,

of five different species,

and they're all just living together.

From octopuses as small as a golf ball,

to octopuses as big as a beach ball.

That is an extraordinary octopus oasis down there,

with several species co-existing.

[narrator] Great real estate may have attracted so many

octopuses here.

But it doesn't explain how animals that would normally

fight, even kill each other,

are living harmoniously.

[♪ curious music]

I've got a theory that might help explain

what we're seeing here.

We've got five different species,

with very different personalities.

The Maori, one of the largest species in the world,

is quite shy.

And then a really tiny octopus, the Southern Keeled,

has a lot of sass.

It's a perfect mix of personalities

for them all to co-exist.

[narrator] So perhaps, just like us,

sometimes it's their differences that allow them to get along.

In this thriving octopolis,

they've learned to defy their instincts

and live peacefully with their neighbors.

[birds cawing]

Octopuses are smart enough to choose companionship

when it counts,

but are there any limits to who they'll cooperate with?

Alex's favorite loner, Scarlett,

is out hunting on the reef.

And she's not the only one.

[♪ threatening music]

A coral trout.

Growing up to three feet long and weighing three times

as much as Scarlett.

Big enough to be a threat.

Scarlett is certainly keeping an eye on him.

But not because she's scared.

[♪ threatening music]

When the small fish flee,

they're out of his reach.

Not Scarlett's though!

He needs to call in the octopus cavalry,

and changes his body color from patterned to pale.

It's the beginning of a signal Scarlett's been waiting for.

Because this trout is now her hunting buddy!

Scarlett watches as he shows her where to look.

Then begins a sweep search.

When she's in the right place,

the trout returns to his normal pattern.

They appear to be using their bodies to talk to each other.

One really fundamental component of human language

is a thing called referential signaling.

My little girl, she's one year old,

and she's already started pointing to certain things

and so I can deduce that she might want a drink

if she points to my water bottle,

but of course, a fish doesn't have a hand to point,

so they do a headstand.

Here we have really unique communication

occurring between different species.

[narrator] Scarlett gets help finding food.

If she misses,

more for the trout.

It's teamwork.

It's given Alex an idea for an impromptu experiment.

[Dr. Alex Schnell] Science often starts with an idea,

even if they're crazy ideas.

After witnessing the octopus hunting with the fish,

I decided to try something.

[narrator] Today Scarlett is hunting alone.

[Dr. Alex Schnell] I follow her around and wait until

she flushes out crustaceans from the coral rubble.

I can see that she misses a few crabs here and there.

I start pointing towards them.

[♪ energetic music]

And to my surprise, she responded.

She had an understanding of what I was trying to

communicate to her.

[narrator] Scarlett is quick to catch the prey

Alex has shown her.

[Dr. Alex Schnell] Maybe she preferred me

as a hunting partner,

I was playing the role of the fish,

but I wasn't taking any of her catch.

It felt weird, and wonderful

to be having this interaction with Scarlett.

Here we are, separated by over 550 million years of evolution,

but we're having a conversation.

It just felt like magic.

[♪ majestic music]

[narrator] The more time we spend in the water

with octopuses,

the more they surprise us.

Every remarkable new discovery,

breaking down our beliefs

about what they could, or should do.

Far from being lifelong loners,

they can be social animals,

but ones that use their skills, selectively,

to get ahead.

From octopus moms, doing the best for their babies,

to cross-species partnerships,

even with us.

As long as it suits them.

What more secrets are yet to be revealed?

Only time will tell.

[splashing]

[bubbles]

When National Geographic Explorer Dr. Alex Schnell

first went looking for a day octopus,

she couldn't have imagined the journey she'd begun.

Or the friend she would make.

[James Cameron] So this is pretty amazing,

it's really fascinated by you.

As fascinated by me as I am by her.

But what do you think it is, do you think it's the eyes

that it, it recognizes a, a thinking being?

Well, I feel like they're driven by so much curiosity.

[James Cameron] Yeah.

No, you can really sense her curiosity about you.

[narrator] Day octopus are normally timid,

but this one seemed to welcome Alex into her world.

I think it's amazing how quickly she discarded the idea

-that you might be threatening. -Mmm.

Curiosity outweighed the danger signals.

Yeah, yeah.

A bigger creature, unfamiliar, could be anything.

-Uh-huh. -you know.

-Yeah, absolutely and she initiates... -[James Cameron] Yeah.

[Dr. Alex Schnell] The touch, which is really important.

[narrator] Alex never dreamt that an animal so alien,

so different,

would reach out to her.

How could she have any basis for that,

there wouldn't have been any kind of innate memory of that.

[sighing]

-I ask myself that question all the time. -Yeah.

[Dr. Alex Schnell] There's a lot going on in that brain.

[James Cameron] Yeah.

[narrator] The time spent with Scarlett was further proof

of just how intelligent octopus are.

They learn fast, because they have to.

They don't have anyone to learn from, uh,

they don't live with brothers or sisters.

Right, so it's not... it's not culturally

passed down and taught by parents or you know.

[Dr. Alex Schnell] No, and I think everything is learnt

from their environment.

[James Cameron] Yeah.

Don't their brains develop very rapidly compared to say ours,

just, just physiologically?

[Dr. Alex Schnell] Yeah, so it's life in the fast lane.

The stakes are high,

-they don't have anyone to protect them. -[James Cameron] Right.

[Dr. Alex Schnell] So they have to learn really quickly.

Yeah and they don't have any natural protection

like shell, teeth, claws, anything like that,

so they, yeah, they can just, they can hide, they can plan,

they can watch, they can strategize.

[Dr. Alex Schnell] Exactly.

Their mind is their weapon.

[James Cameron] Yeah.

They're kind of scientists.

You know, like the way kids are scientists.

Kids just wanna know how things work, right?

So they're these young, curious minds that are

figuring out a theory of how their world works around them.

Mm-hm, yeah, it's a completely alternative pathway

-to intelligence, and that's... -[James Cameron] Yeah.

...what draws me to studying these animals.

And these guys are just breaking all of the rules.

[narrator] With their remarkable intelligence and curiosity,

octopuses overcome almost any obstacle

their habitat throws at them.

Problem-solving masterminds that never switch off.

She's out, she's sleeping.

She's sleeping, yeah.

Octopus snoring.

[Dr. Alex Schnell] It's really interesting because she goes through

like this still sleep cycle here,

but then she'll have a moment when she starts to

move quite a bit,

this is what we call an active phase of sleep.

[James Cameron] Yeah, like REM sleep.

-Absolutely. -Yeah.

And what happens when humans have an active phase of sleep

-is we dream. -Right.

And so it might mean that she's also dreaming.

Yeah. Oh, she's dreaming.

Trust me, she's dreaming.

Come on, look.

I mean it's like a, like a dog's paws, you know,

when they're chasing rabbits in their, in their dream.

Absolutely.

Of course, we don't know dogs are dreaming,

but we know dogs are dreaming, we know it.

Well, dreaming is really important to me,

I mean I do a lot of my creative work,

I think, in dreams.

You know.

I mean I always said it's my own private streaming channel

that's free.

But you know Avatar was based on dream imagery,

Terminator was based on dream imagery,

scenes in Aliens were based on dream imagery.

Seems pretty obvious she's dreaming to me.

Now what she's dreaming about, that we can't answer.

[Dr. Alex Schnell] No, that we can't answer.

You'll notice during the active phase,

she's twitching and also...

-She's doing it. -Changing color.

-She's doing it right now. Yeah. -Mmm.

That could mean that she's processing memory.

Yeah, so that could be experience, could be location,

could be building, you know, some kind of geographic map...

-Exactly. -Memory map.

[Dr. Alex Schnell] Building a mental map of her habitat,

which could save her life in a, you know, in a future encounter.

Even looking at their behaviors and the way that

their skin changes,

that in itself is a window into their mind.

While we can't talk to them, their skin tell the stories.

It does tell a story.

[narrator] If octopuses do dream,

it is one of many secrets

that scientists have yet to discover.

The more time we spend in their world,

the more we learn about the intelligent ways they survive.

Just ten years ago, a large gathering of Dorado females

was discovered 10,000 feet deep.

[Dr. Alex Schnell] So this is more your territory.

[James Cameron] Well, I've seen these guys plenty of times

but I, I haven't seen this kind of uh, aggregating behavior

where you see a bunch of them in one place,

they're usually solo acts.

Out of the 300 species of octopus,

most of them are loners.

Right.

But you have a handful of species where you will see them

aggregate into these small communities.

[James Cameron] Yeah.

[Dr. Alex Schnell] They've come together here collectively,

to take advantage of the hot water

that's seeping out of the vent.

Right, and, and you're thinking that the warmth of that,

that hydro-thermal flow, that warm water coming up,

-is causing the eggs to develop faster. -Yeah.

Like a bird keeping its eggs warm.

[Dr. Alex Schnell] Exactly, otherwise it would just

take too long.

We don't even have a name for an octopus group.

[laughs].

Uh, well, what would you call it?

A flock of, of octopuses?

-Yeah. -A flocktopus!

Flocktopus.

[laughs].

[James Cameron] What's amazing, every time you go into

the deep ocean, you're always finding out something new.

So how deep have you gone then?

Well, I've gone a lot deeper than this.

Uh, actually to the deepest place in the, in the world,

but once you get down below, you know 500 or 1,000 feet,

it's all pitch black, all the way down,

and I think we're at, what 10,000?

-10,000 feet. -10,000 feet here.

Yeah so, it's pitch black all day every day,

you know, and cold.

But I've heard that you have also seen a dumbo octopus.

-Oh, the dumbos are beautiful. -Yeah.

Absolutely gorgeous and they have their little

head fins, their little cephalic fins.

They look like dumbo ears but they're really fins.

[Dr. Alex Schnell] Yeah.

[James Cameron] I don't think any other species have fins

like that on their head, but they're gorgeous, they're,

they're translucent

and they have a kind of an iridescent quality,

they're really quite beautiful.

Do you draw creative inspiration

from these explorations?

[James Cameron] Absolutely.

I've got some characters in an upcoming Avatar film that are inspired

by some of the deep, uh, deep creature,

deep cephalopods.

-Oh, excellent. -Thanks.

Can't say anything more about that right now.

[laughing]

I mean not only are these, like,

particularly alien-looking octopus,

but I think all octopuses are kind of alien.

I think that's what draws us to them,

because we, as humans are so fascinated by the unknown

and by the alien, and here we have

a very alien-like creature,

but then we can resonate with them as well,

they show these familiar traits

that we can really connect to.

I mean the ocean still has so much to teach us,

even in the places we think we know.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah, there's so much to learn still.

We've got a whole different alien world down there.

[James Cameron] That's right.

[♪ closing theme music]

Captioned by Cotter Media Group.