All language subtitles for 3939242B1AC297ADF3077F6F896F9ED9_eng

We take our way of existence for granted,
but there are other ways of being.

The octopuses followed a different
evolutionary path, making them different

from all the other intelligent animals on
this planet.

But me?

I'm less intrigued by the differences,
and more interested in our similarities

and the nature of a relationship I might
have with such a creature.

This year, I got to experiment with an
idea.

What would I find out if I invited an
octopus into my home?

What kind of connection is
possible with an animal that

has three hearts and blue
blood running through its veins?

My name is David Scheel.

I'm professor of marine biology at Alaska
Pacific University here in Anchorage.

I've studied all sorts
of animals, but for the

last 25 years, my focus
has been on octopuses.

I have two girls.

Juniper is away at university right now,
and Laurel is with me about half the time.

She lives here.

Laurel's 16.

She's in 10th grade.

We should check with her, make sure dad
hasn't screwed that up.

Hey, Laurel!

You're 16, right?

In 10th grade?

There we go!

I'm going out on a limb a little.

I'm not sure.

Well, taking my octopus
fascination one step further, I'm

going to fill my living room
with a large tank of salt water.

I got divorced, and the
ex took some of the living

room furniture, most of
the living room furniture.

My daughter's in and out of the house,
but she was eager to have a pet,

and so this is a compromise.

It's a compromise between
a girl who really wanted a

dog and a dad who's overly
interested in octopuses.

Actually, it's not a compromise.

I got the octopus.

Yeah, we have a lamp.

So lit.

Yeah, so it's lit.

Inviting an octopus into your home is no
small undertaking.

There we go.

All right.

There we go.

This new setup is going to
allow me to spend more time

with an octopus than I've
been able to do otherwise.

When I spend time with
an octopus in the wild, I visit

them for only as long
as I can stay in the water.

Here in Alaska, I work with the species
that's native to these cold waters,

the giant Pacific octopus.

This has been a fantastic sight.

There's maybe a dozen or
more octopuses that we might

be able to find at depths
from 10 feet deep to 90.

These are the largest octopuses in the
world.

They can be as big as I am.

Like all octopuses, they're solitary
animals.

And they are hard to find.

They're hard to find, but they do leave us
some signs.

They bring their prey back to their den
and they eat it at their den.

And then they throw the hard shells
outside the door.

And we call that pile a midden.

You can get a lot of information by
looking at their garbage piles.

Or by looking at their houses.

You place your hand outside the den and an
arm might stretch out to touch you.

Sometimes they're a bit too enthusiastic
and they grab your mask.

You don't want to let them get a hold of
your air supply.

You know, they have eight arms,
I have two, so they win.

They're sort of the gentle giants of the
ocean.

They can be really large, but they're very
graceful animals.

They sort of flow from one place to
another.

And I like to watch how they use their
different legs.

Sometimes they're creeping on their
suckers.

Sometimes it's sort of they're just
following the lead two arms.

And then other times
you can see this sort of

walking behavior going
on with the rear arms.

Down here, I'm in their realm.

And I often wonder, how do they see the
world?

And this is what my plan at home is all
about.

To spend a little more time in an octopus
encounter.

To consider, how do they see the world?

How might they see us?

Well, I didn't want a giant pacific.

I wanted something that was different.

Something that will be new to me, a warmer
water species that's faster, more active.

This is a species that's been kept in
aquariums to be studied for its intelligence.

It's an octopus cyanea, known as the day
octopus.

They call it that because
unlike some other octopus

species, these guys
are active during the day.

And so you get to see them more.

Yep, pulling hard.

Well, just a minute.

I'll put you in the tank.

No, no, not yet.

Not yet.

Just a minute.

There you go.

There you go.

There she goes.

Oh, nice color change.

Oh, look at this.

Nice.

I mean, I guess the big thing for me about
keeping an animal in the home is it's just

more relaxed.

If I don't want to do anything,
I don't have to do anything.

You just see what the animal does.

And I'm not trying to do science here.

I'm just trying to think a little bit.

So it's just a chance to
be more available and more

present for whatever the
animal's living day to day.

She's very careful to keep her eyeball in
view of mine.

And she's already checking me out.

I always get the sense when you're scuba
diving that they play this game with you.

Octopuses adapt their environments around
them to their own liking.

They clean out a hole,
under a rock or in a crevice,

blowing out sand and
debris with their siphon.

And at that point, it's not just shelter.

It's home.

Hey there.

Are you interested in some food?

Octopuses love crab.

Well, there it is.

She's definitely feeling for it.

Oh, oh, oh.

She's after the tube, not the crab.

There we go.

There we go.

There we go.

Oh.

All right.

Look at the color pattern.

That is a satisfied octopus.

I like the texture she's put on.

She didn't have that before.

The papillae coming up
around the eye and the

sort of bumps and
things all over her head.

It's very nice.

Now she at least will
know that the tube and

the environment have
interesting possibilities.

Laurel is also going to be helping me take
care of the octopus.

You know, the octopus was very happy to
see Laurel every day.

Hello.

Laurel was just glad to have a pet that
was glad to see her.

Yeah.

I think a lot of her pets are kind of
indifferent to her.

Her goldfish and her rabbit outside.

So an octopus is kind of fun because it
comes running.

Looks like she's coming back over.

Laurel would send me little
video clips of the octopus

getting up and waiting on
the glass and ready to play.

And, you know, I'm sure Laurel looked
forward to it every day.

Come here, Heidi.

Some of the things that she would do
remind me of what, like, dogs would do.

Oh, you're already up here.

Come here.

You know, she comes
over to the wall of the tank

and just kind of, like,
all excited to see you.

And so being an intelligent animal means
that you need a lot of stimulus.

So being played with
or having just, like,

interactions with people
is entertaining for her.

Laurel would tell me she'd
sit for 30 minutes with the

octopus just holding on to
her and wait for it to let go.

And now she's excited.

So she'd sit there with her hand in the
aquarium for 30 minutes.

So they're pretty affectionate.

She's filming more of the sand right now.

Well, now she's filming me.

Hi, Heidi.

Hi.

The reason we call her Heidi was because
when we first got her, she spent a very,

very long time in her den, and she was
just hiding the whole time.

She didn't seem to want to come out.

And then basically once we
taught her that we meant food, she

just grabbed on and was like,
OK, I'm keeping you with me.

The cephalopod community, we're all
excited about octopuses, and we're a

fairly close-knit group
of researchers, share

all kinds of different
experiences and advice.

Well, hi there.

Hi, David, how are you doing?

All right, how are you?

Brett is an expert on the early stages of
cephalopod life, that group of animals

that includes octopuses, cuttlefish,
and squid.

Exactly, exactly.

So how's everything going over there?

Because I've never kept an octopus in my
living room before.

You want to take a look at the setup?

Yeah, I'd love to.

All right, let's see if I can get the
computer over there and show you.

So she's actually out right now.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great.

She's got a good marbled coloration going
on there.

My day octopus is already a few months
old.

But at Brett's lab, we
can get a glimpse into

the first few weeks
of a cephalopod's life.

We're, you know,
watching the mother until

she starts going through
her egg-laying phase.

And once she starts
laying her eggs, she'll sit

there and pulse jets
of water over her eggs.

What that does is basically keep them
oxygenated.

And the eggs continue to develop until
they get to basically look almost like

little octopuses inside of each individual
egg.

And then we know they can kind of hatch at
any time.

This is one of the few places you can see
octopuses hatch from the egg.

From this moment, octopuses are on their
own.

The first instinct of this hatchling is to
hatch.

The second instinct is to construct a den
out of whatever it can find.

Baby bobtailed squid hide
by sticking grains of sand

to their bodies with a mucus
extruded from their skin.

These are all hardwired little predators.

They don't hesitate to take down prey, even
when it's two or three times their size.

Their color-changing cells start flashing.

While they're still in the egg.

Three types of cells with neural control
make color change almost instantaneous.

These young pajama squid use this to
produce their signature striped pattern.

But there is one cephalopod that is the
master.

Just a few centimeters long, these baby
flamboyant cuddles...

can beguile anyone with a shape-shift that
is out of this world.

The day octopus can also perform an
extraordinary display with their skin.

And they already have some experience with
these octopuses in the wild.

I've been in the water with them on the
southwest coast of Madagascar...

working with a local Vezu fisherman designing
a way to census the octopus population.

Breece has an amazing ability to find the
octopus in amongst the coral.

You see there?

Yeah, yeah.

The head?

Yeah.

You see?

Yeah.

It's amazing to me how fast they are here.

The octopuses in Alaska, they're kind of
big, slow giants.

And these guys are just quick and agile
and limber.

And really, everything they do,
they seem to do it at ramped-up speed.

I've had them in my hands, and then
they're already gone.

And then I look over and Breece has caught
it again.

It's fish in the water.

The day octopus is a master of camouflage.

Its skin can change color in milliseconds.

And it can use muscles on the surface of
its skin...

to change texture as well.

And

this species has recently been recorded...

demonstrating an incredible behavior with
its color displays.

It's a display called Passing Cloud.

It's just so stunningly beautiful.

It's like, wow, what's that?

The thing about Passing Cloud... is it's
a very impressive physiological ability.

And at the same time...
it's a bit of a mystery.

The most common theory you hear...

is that octopuses are using Passing Cloud
to startle its prey...

and trap it in the web of its arms.

My octopus is showing impressive color
changes of her own...

observing what we're doing.

We've seen how closely the octopus we have
here at the house...

is watching our eyes.

You look at them and you feel like they're
looking back.

That's not an illusion.

They are looking back.

And so when you have an animal that's that
attentive... to another animal's eyes...

that is very suggestive of high level of
awareness of the world.

Well, scientists do find questions about
octopus intelligence...

particularly intriguing.

At the Seattle Aquarium...

they did some experiments giving different
objects to octopuses...

and recorded what happened.

In one of the most telling experiments...

the researchers put a pill bottle in the
tank... with just enough air in it to float.

There was no food or anything to be gained
here.

But still, a few octopuses found reason to
be interested.

Nothing happened at first.

But after the fourth time...

the octopus would take the pill bottle...
and blow it out into a stream of water...

that was circulating around the tank.

There it goes.

And the water would bring the pill bottle
back to the octopus again...

and it would start the whole thing
over again... and do it again and again.

Blowing the pill bottle into the water
until it came back...

and then blowing it back into the water
again.

A bit like bouncing a ball.

The conclusion from this experiment was
simple.

It fit all the criteria for play.

Play, of course, is something that
intelligent animals do.

And Laurel spends many hours playing with
Heidi.

.

.

Now you say hello to me.

Octopuses have up to 240 suckers on their
arms.

Each has sensitive chemical receptors.

Heidi can touch and taste Laurel at the
same time.

She just lightly checked it out.

She doesn't want me to leave.

Octopuses also have estrogen, like humans
do.

Is it possible that Heidi can be detecting
the estrogen on Laurel's skin?

Does Heidi maybe taste the difference
between males and females?

Heidi...

Her arm is now up my sleeve.

That's fun.

Heidi, you're being... you're being
naughty.

She's lifting herself almost all the way
out of the tank right now.

Come here.

Come here.

Come here.

Oh!

Now I'm wet.

The idea of Laurel having
any kind of relationship with

a mollusk is extraordinary
when you think about it.

This is an animal that has 600 million
years of distance from us.

.

.

.

It's almost as deep as any divide can be
between two animals.

With three hearts, no bones, a beak with a
venomous bite, and a gut that runs through

its brain, to one point of view,
the octopus is completely alien.

As science fiction movies have long
demonstrated, humans spend a lot of

imagination dreaming up what it might be
like to meet an alien.

In the latest blockbuster, Arrival,
the filmmakers imagine what it might be

like to encounter a species that changes
the way we think about the universe.

And I think it's an important
observation that they culminate

this encounter with cephalopod-like
figures from outer space.

To really understand quite how alien
octopuses are to us, and to every other

intelligent form of life on Earth,
we need to appreciate the unique

evolutionary path of the octopus on the
Tree of Life.

It's Octopus Lecture 101 for my students.

Okay, what does the Tree of Life look
like?

Here are a couple of artistic versions.

Now, just to give you a quick overview,
here's the plants, here's the animals,

this is the branch that has the
vertebrates...

To meet the common ancestor
of humans and octopus, you would

have to travel back in time
more than half a billion years.

Millions of years before any animal
crawled out of the ocean onto the land.

So here's the octopus, and
here's the human, and their last

common ancestor is something
that was fairly like a flatworm.

And what would this common ancestor look
like?

Well, maybe a little bit like this.

A small, flat worm.

Barely any eyes to
speak of, with a cluster

of neurons forming
just a pinprick of a brain.

From this beginning, one path
of evolution gave rise to every

bird and every reptile, every
mammal, all of them, us included.

All of them.

All adaptations from this common ancestor.

Designs of eyes and
brains and hearts becoming

ever more sophisticated
and more varied.

That was the path for every intelligent
animal.

Except for one.

That is why people talk about meeting an
octopus being like meeting an alien.

Because octopus branch of life evolved on
its own separate track, inventing its own

version of an eye, its own version of a
brain, its own version of a heart.

The octopus is a unique expression of
evolution.

So any contact I have with
these animals is possible because

evolution built our eyes, our
minds, our behavior twice over.

There is no other intelligent
animal on the planet that has

evolved separately from all
the other animals in this way.

And this is why people are so
fascinated to make contact and

to understand every facet of
this very particular sentience.

In aquarium tanks all around the world,
octopuses have been put through their paces.

They have solved
complex mazes, even learnt

symbols, passed memory
tests for their rewards.

Learning from feedback,
forward thinking,

applying diverse behaviors
to novel situations.

When you stack them one on top of another,
that's what we call intelligence.

And the unique evolutionary journey of the
octopus Come on, Heidi.

makes this intelligence particularly
intriguing.

For a start, the intelligence
of an octopus is not just

gathered as one lump in
its head, like it is with us.

Parts of the octopus intelligence are
distributed in its arms.

And that means that to some extent the
body can be its own controller,

rather than having a body being driven
entirely around by the brain.

Eight arms, independently gathering data,
and reacting to the world around them.

All kinds of intelligence require
feedback.

I think that's why humans are intelligent,
is because we just know, you try,

and you learn from your errors.

So trial and error is really the
intelligent thing.

And octopuses make trial and error do more
than you might expect.

Heidi and I are playing
around, recreating an early

one of these experiments
into octopus cognition.

In 1959, a Harvard scientist asked a
simple question.

Can an octopus learn to pull and release a
lever to get a reward?

That experiment was successful.

And so I thought, wouldn't it be fun to
play with whether Heidi would be

interested in manipulating something
outside of her tank?

And so this is sort of a way to
see if she can learn that when

she gets the light to turn on,
she can bring us into the room.

It's kind of an interesting thing to play
around with.

When you pull on the string, the light
goes on.

Ooh, and the buzzer.

Ha, ha, ha.

Want to chase the ball?

Come on, up here.

Come on.

The concept, which didn't get
fully explored, was... All the way.

Can she learn that by doing
something in the tank, she

can affect my behavior
when I'm not actually in view?

That's it.

Come on.

There you go.

That a girl.

Come on.

Oh.

Oh, you got it.

Oh.

You vicious predator.

So I was curious about, does the octopus
retain enough of a concept of the person?

Not present in her view, but present in
her mind.

You gonna get it, Heidi?

It's on.

Well, hi.

Oh, you did it.

Well done.

It didn't take her any time at all to
learn that there was a queue over here.

You want some shrimp?

But the rest of it, you know, that was
challenging.

This idea was more fun in the concept than
at any point in the execution.

Yeah.

Heidi got fairly insistent.

And I decided to take this all apart.

Our understanding of octopus intelligence
took another leap forward when in

Indonesia in 2009,
researchers reported a

veined octopus doing
something truly remarkable.

It was a discovery that would put our
understanding of the octopus onto a new

level of sentience, occupied by only a few
species of animals.

Living on the sand flats, they have very
few places to hide.

But this octopus has a unique solution to
the problem.

It carries half a coconut shell with it.

But it needs to find something else to
complete the set.

Two coconut halves.

A perfect shelter.

What is remarkable about this discovery is
how the octopus dismantles its home.

Carries it around.

Uses it to hide and to ambush prey.

And now, it's putting it back together
again.

This octopus is thinking ahead.

This is real flexibility.

The octopus has to anticipate to carry
that awkward object around.

And then, correctly assemble the separate
parts to create a single functioning tool.

And less than 1% of all animals have ever
been seen to use tools.

And it's not just
science that is starting

to take notice of the
extraordinary octopus.

Laurel is showing me all the attention
these animals are getting from people.

I've seen Heidi do this before.

Oh yeah.

So my real question on this one is who's
taking the video?

Is it another octopus who's stolen a
GoPro?

Maybe he's filming himself.

Yeah, he's doing a vlog.

Oh yeah.

Video blog.

Yeah.

And he's like, look at this strange thing
that came and found me.

We're no longer just eating octopuses.

People are meeting them now, making
contact in the ocean.

I held the fish in front of his shell and
he grabbed it from my hand.

He touched my finger with his arm and I
think that we were both a bit surprised.

So we both pulled back.

This time he grabbed my finger and he
tried to pull my finger inside.

But I was really surprised by his
strength.

This clip has 11 million hits.

He was punching the fish away with his
arms.

It was the funniest thing I've ever seen.

This octopus trying to punch away a little
fish.

It was definitely the coolest encounter
I've had with an octopus.

I tried to see how he responds to
different objects, like a cone shell or a

mirror, but he never really responded the
way that I expect.

For example, he was not interested at all
in a cone shell that I gave him,

but he kept going up
to my hand and he kept

feeling my little elastic
band around my wrist.

I went on holiday and I didn't see him for
a few days before.

I was worried he wouldn't be there anymore
when I came back.

But I found him and he swam up to me and
he touched my foot.

985 clams disliked this video.

This one also went viral.

It wasn't hard to get Heidi to demonstrate
these impressive skills of contortion.

She doesn't have a skeleton.

Want to go through?

Come on, Heidi.

Come out and play.

Come on.

Octopuses are able to squeeze through the
smallest of gaps.

That a girl.

That's it.

Come on, sweetie.

Good girl.

Come on.

Come on.

A little squeeze.

There we go.

That a girl.

Keep coming.

You can do it.

Almost.

You can squeeze.

I need to be very careful.

This ability makes Heidi a real escape
risk.

She is quite capable of leaving the tank
if she gets a chance.

In fact, octopus can move across land with
surprising ease.

In northern Australia, it's part of the
hunting strategy of the abdopus octopus.

Octopus have gills, so they can't survive
out here for long.

But they do absorb some oxygen through
their skin, allowing them enough time to

find a new rock pool with new
opportunities.

And leaving the water, it's not just being
seen in the wild.

There's stories everywhere.

There's far more stories than there are
data.

One story tells of a trawler
in the English Channel

and an octopus caught
in a net and left on deck.

Somehow, it manages to slither from the
deck down the companionway into the cabin

and hours later is found hiding in a
teapot.

Now we turn to a tale of escape,
a daring act by an octopus.

Inky the octopus...

In a New Zealand aquarium, another octopus
named Inky becomes famous on the news when

it was reported for escaping
its tank and crawling across

the floor, disappearing down
a drain, escaping to the sea.

The manager of the aquarium says Inky will
not be assumed.

Some of my favorite stories are about pet
octopus popping out of their tank.

It's a snack on their neighbors.

People notice their fishes going missing
in the middle of the night.

They discover that an
octopus might sneak out

under the cover of dark
and then return unnoticed.

My investigations into
this suggest an octopus

leaving its tank to grab
a snack does happen.

But finding its way back?

That is probably urban legend.

Back in our living room, Heidi has become
a fully-fledged consummate predator.

Sometimes, when Heidi hunts, before the
attack, she might be camouflaged.

But as she gets ready, she'll drop all her
camouflage.

And then there's this ghostly white form.

And then pounce.

While she's a master of her environment,
she is also taking part in our lives

outside the tank, adapting to our daily
routine with remarkable ease.

We'd come in, we'd turn on the TV,
we'd sit down, and a couple minutes later

she'd move over to the front of the tank,
closer to the TV.

She started doing that
pretty much every time

we would come into the
living room to watch TV.

And so we'd have TV time with the octopus.

I think this is how she would orient
herself if she's actually watching it

because her eyes just moved so that
they're more facing towards the TV.

An oceanic wanderer stops by to be
cleaned.

There seems to be like very
subtle changes, like slight

widening of eyes and like
a slightly faster breathing.

But is Heidi really watching TV with
Laurel?

The idea isn't as far-fetched as it
sounds.

Researchers for a long
time have used video to show

cuttlefish and octopuses
and see what they look like.

How they react to it.

Are they signaling to one another?

Is there sort of a language of behavior?

So it's completely believable that Heidi
is watching television.

Long distances along the reef in order to
get here.

But to what extent is she watching us?

Increasingly, we can see just how well
Heidi recognizes us.

There is good evidence that she is aware
of who we are.

So sometimes, I take extra measures to be
someone else.

This isn't an octopus horror show.

It's actually based on hard science.

There is plenty of evidence that shows
octopus recognize people.

I'm going to weigh Heidi today and to do
that I've got to capture her so that I can

lift her up on the scale and she might not
like that.

So I'm going to wear a mask.

Well, you see, there's an interesting
study that was done in 2008 that showed

that octopuses in aquariums remember and
recognize individual human faces.

The experiment dressed two people in
identical uniforms.

One would feed the octopus.

The other would annoy the octopus with a
bristly stick.

Within just a week, the octopus
would move towards the person

that fed them and avoid or
even squirt the annoying one.

What do you think, Heidi?

Here goes.

And so, when I weigh Heidi, this just
might make it a little easier for her to

forgive me for capturing her and weighing
her.

It's harder to tell in a living room
experience, but Laurel is quite convinced

that Heidi showed the
difference between the way she

reacted to either of us
and visitors to the house.

Recognizing people on the
other side of the glass is an

unlikely ability for a creature
that comes from the ocean.

Okay.

You've been weighed.

And there is a new dimension being added
to this study of octopus intelligence.

Personality.

Scientists have used the
relationship between octopus

and humans in an aquarium
setting like this... Whoop!

That's the first time that she's ever
taken it away from me.

...to demonstrate how individual octopus
have their own personality.

And Laurel is certainly convinced about
the particular character of our octopus.

Heidi's definitely a troublemaker.

When we feed her, she grabs onto you.

Heidi!

And then she jets at you.

It's wet!

It's very wet!

It's just cold.

She got it right up my sleeve.

You know, you're trying to
pull away with this octopus stuck

to your arm and she's jetting
water in your face and it's...

You know, she's trying to get attention
and she doesn't want us to leave the room.

There have now been several studies that
have looked for signs of personality in

different cephalopods and typically find
that there are individual personalities.

Bringing the octopus into an area of study
normally reserved for animals like

chimpanzees and dolphins
is another milestone

in the understanding
of octopus intelligence.

And certainly, the first time we saw an
octopus looking for an invertebrate.

This experience with the octopus in our
living room helps me understand a little

bit more about how they experience the
world.

But it also highlights a paradox.

One of the cephalopod mysteries.

Scientists have a model that suggests that
some of the things that go along with

intelligence are longer lifespans and
longer periods in complex social lives.

Neither of those things apply to
octopuses.

They live short lives and they spend them
alone.

The fact that octopuses are solitary seems
at odds with how Heidi can have this kind

of intelligent relationship with us at
all.

Recently, I've been investigating a unique
discovery in Australia.

One that suggests octopuses may not always
be solitary after all.

This extraordinary
discovery happened in 2009

in a small bay not that
far from Sydney Harbour.

A diver named Matt Lawrence plunged over
the side of his boat and drifting along

just exploring in areas of the bay that
everyone else found were pretty boring.

And in the middle of a silty area he came
across something very unexpected.

Piles of empty scallop shells.

And in amongst the scallop shells about a
dozen octopuses had made their homes.

We have nicknamed the site Octopolis
although it's hardly a city of octopuses.

But an aggregation like this is unheard of
anywhere else in the world.

I'm helping to try and find out what's
going on here.

And working with Matt we are
putting some remote cameras down

to get a closer look at the
behaviour at this unusual site.

We wanted to capture this sort of natural
behaviour and Matt started putting a GoPro

down you know one or
two GoPros on the site to

sort of film the octopuses
when divers were around.

And so it's kind of exciting
to come back and track

what's going on with the
octopuses from moment to moment.

So that's the octopus that's taken over
the camera now.

He's pulling down

He's got the camera.

No wonder we can't keep the cameras alive.

It'll take a beating.

I love it when this
happens and then another

video records the octopus
vandalising our cameras.

And when the cameras aren't getting pulled
apart they are recording social

interactions that you simply can't see
anywhere else.

They appear to be here to signal to one
another.

And they make themselves look really dark
and conspicuous and large when they're

approaching and rather flat and pale when
they're retreating.

You see octopuses reaching towards each
other.

I wouldn't want to speculate yet what that
is.

But they're interacting.

This is pretty new.

So this, this is more of that signalling.

But why do you think
why does the approaching

octopus evict this
one and not that one?

I wonder if it's possible that they're
like recognising one another.

You know.

Yeah.

They prefer one animal over another.

You know, like a smaller rival male.

That's the high five.

Oh yeah.

There it is.

They go over and touch each other and
just, yeah.

Octopolis is a sort of a wonderland.

It's just kind of awe-inspiring.

There's octopuses side by side in adjacent
dens.

And that's so surprising for an animal
that we always thought was solid.

You see octopuses approaching one another
and chasing one another.

You see them wrestle with one another.

It's always fairly spectacular because it's
like watching two umbrellas have a fight.

What makes Octopolis unique
is that this is a spot where the

conditions occur that force
social skills upon the octopus.

It's a very exciting find.

It does sort of shake up the
cephalopod world a little bit

to think that octopuses may
have to deal with one another.

And in doing so sort of hone their social
skills.

The research has only just begun and we'll
need to work out how these environmental

conditions might create what we thought
did not happen.

Octopuses living side by side with one
another.

Each new discovery makes a
little more sense of how Heidi

can have a relationship like
she does with Laurel and me.

Having an octopus
in our living room has

enabled us an intimacy
not possible in the lab.

Last night I witnessed something I've
never seen recorded before.

You know if she is dreaming this is a
dramatic moment.

You could almost just narrate the body
changes and narrate the dream.

So here she's asleep she sees a crab and
her color starts to change a little bit.

Then she turns all dark.

Octopuses will do that when they leave the
bottom.

This is a camouflage
like she's just subdued a

crab and now she's
going to sit there and eat it.

And she doesn't want anyone to notice her.

It's a very unusual behavior to see the
color come and go on her mantle like that.

I mean just to be able
to see all the different

color patterns just
flashing one after another.

You don't usually see that when an animal
is sleeping which really is fascinating.

But yeah if she's dreaming that's the
dream.

The solitary octopus does not fit our theories
of how animal intelligence can evolve.

And yet it is.

And there is another thing about the
octopus which also contradicts our

theories on the development of
intelligence.

It is something Laurel and I will soon
have to come to terms with.

Because most octopus live for only a year
or two at most.

It is incredible that octopus can become
so sophisticated in such a short time.

There is a connection here.

That crosses a divide
not just from air into water

but also across half a
billion years of separation.

And it's been a privilege
to have a relationship

with such a strange
and wonderful creature.