Many scientists think that octopuses are not earth creatures, because octopuses create many incomprehensible "strange things", such as imitating human walking, predicting the outcome of competitions, escape from secret rooms, etc. These unconventional operations make the octopus more and more mysterious.
Octopus out of the water
Most importantly, in the millions of years of evolution, octopuses have really only almost become the overlords of the ocean, but because of the constraints of lifespan, they can never become advanced intelligent creatures. So, how high is the IQ of octopus? Is it possible to surpass humans in the future?
How high is the IQ of an octopus?
Octopuses are the most intelligent species of invertebrates, their IQ has been so high that it is incomprehensible, and scientists have done a "mirror experiment" with octopuses, letting octopuses look at the mirror themselves, and then observe whether they know that the image in the mirror is themselves.
As a result, the octopus passed the test perfectly, to know that even such a smart animal as a dog and a cat could not distinguish itself in the mirror experiment, which showed that the octopus HAD a high IQ, not only that, the octopus's ability to imitate, the ability to use tools, and the "logical" cognition were far beyond human imagination.
The pigment cells in the octopus body are very developed, known as "ocean chameleons", they can quickly change the color of the body within 2 seconds according to the surrounding environment, and even when they are attacked, they can spray 6 times of ink in a row to avoid the enemy's attack, which is very cunning.
Not only that, but clever octopuses will also simulate various creatures in the ocean, such as when they are preying, they can disguise themselves as seaweed, thus tricking small fish into casting their nets, and when encountering predators, they will also disguise themselves as jellyfish and lionfish to avoid predators.
And this way of advancing, faster than their swimming speed, shows how powerful the octopus's ability to imitate is.
Octopus "walking"
In addition to the ability to imitate, octopus learning ability is also extremely prominent, because they have 2 sets of memory systems, one in the head, one directly connected to the suction cup of the tentacle, so their tentacles can handle complex problems without going through the brain.
Therefore, octopuses can use many tools with their tentacles, such as when hunting oysters, the octopus will first find a small stone, and then secrete a chemical element that forces the oyster to open, and then throw the small pebble with the tentacle before the oyster closes its mouth, so that the oyster cannot close the door.
An octopus eating shells
Not only that, the octopus can also use its own tentacles to open the switches of some utensils, such as throwing the octopus into a glass bottle, and then tightening the bottle cap, then the octopus will use its own tentacles to follow the thread after groping for a while, unscrew the bottle cap, and then escape, which is breathtaking.
Many people think that octopuses have a certain "logical" thinking, because octopuses can solve complex problems independently, such as an octopus in the Munich Aquarium, in order to return to their hometown for a long time, found a 50-meter-long drain, and then after many efforts, successfully "escaped".
Caught octopus
In addition, Columbia University once did an experiment on octopuses, they put 50 octopuses in a tank, let a female staff feed the octopus, and then sent a male staff member to take the food away to observe the octopus's performance.
As a result, half a month later, the male staff member who took the food was frequently attacked by the ink of the octopus, and the amount of water was 3 liters, which showed that the octopus, like mammals, could distinguish humans, and this was also a manifestation of high intelligence.
Why do scientists say that octopuses are not earth creatures?
Octopuses not only have a super high IQ, because most of the body size of earth creatures is symmetrical left and right, while octopuses are centrally symmetrical, this strange body is incredible, and even violates the view of evolution.
Octopuses have different brains from most animals because they have 9 brains, divided into 1 main brain and 8 subbrains, and there are 500 million neurons distributed in the brain, which is more than most mammals.
Octopus brain structure
Among them, the main brain is located in the head, and the remaining 8 pairs of brains are located on each tentacle, so the octopus's tentacles still have the ability to move after being broken, and even can perceive the situation of the outside world, which is very magical.
In addition, the role of the octopus's 9 brains is also different, the main brain mainly plays the role of thinking and memory, while the secondary brain that grows on the tentacles is only responsible for memory function, so the octopus has two sets of memory systems, which is naturally very smart.
The most amazing thing is that the octopus also has a pair of eyes that can see the four-dimensional world, compared to humans who can only see the long, wide and high (three-dimensional world), the special eye structure of the octopus makes the object they see perpendicular to the four-dimensional world of length, width and height.
The eyes of an octopus
There are many kinds of octopuses, and the size varies, ordinary octopuses are between 10-50 cm in length, while large octopuses are about 2 meters long and weigh more than 100 pounds, especially giant octopuses in the deep sea, with a body length of up to 10 meters and a weight of nearly 500 pounds, even whales can be killed, which is a deep-sea giant in the true sense.
In addition, the body structure of the octopus is enough to subvert people's cognition, because all the organs of the octopus grow on the head, and the head and the antennae are directly connected, so the octopus has no "body", and the octopus also has 3 hearts, making their vitality extremely strong, this body structure is very different from any species on the earth.
The body structure of the octopus
It is worth mentioning that the octopus is also the only animal with blue blood on the earth, and the concentration of this blue blood is so low that the human eye cannot distinguish it at all, and can only be seen clearly when a large amount of oxygen is injected.
Octopuses have lived on Earth for at least hundreds of millions of years, and the evolution of octopuses is very slow compared to humans who have only existed for 2 million years, after all, human evolution strictly adheres to genetic inheritance, and octopuses are just the opposite, they prefer to "change their lives against the sky".
According to zoologists, the number of human genes is about 20,000, compared with about 33,000 genes in octopuses, and many of these genes are related to the brain, so many people speculate that these genes are edited by the octopus itself.
Simply put, octopuses can edit their own genomes according to their own needs, and even control their own genetic genes, and then change the function of cells and make themselves more adaptable to the surrounding environment, this behavior on the earth, only octopuses can do it, and it is also the reason why octopuses are not like earth creatures.
Is it possible for octopuses to surpass humans in the future?
Although the current human technology is very developed, but our cognition of octopus, still stay on the surface, octopus for us, still has a strong sense of mystery, but it is certain that octopus can never evolve civilization, and can never surpass humans, the specific reasons have the following 4 points.
Lifespan is the key to biological reproduction, and it is also the most core issue of biological evolution, because only living can create civilization, and lifespan is a fatal flaw for octopuses, so that octopuses can not exert greater potential, but also let the octopus can never stand at the top of the food chain.
Because the lifespan of octopuses is only a pitiful 3 years, no more than 4 years at most, it may only be that the lifespan of deep-sea octopuses is slightly longer, and the octopus's adaptability to the environment is also very poor, and once the water temperature is below 7 degrees, it will die, which greatly limits the growth of octopuses.
Not only that, once the octopus spawns, it will die, it can be said that spawning is the watershed of the octopus's life, and the octopus can only produce once in its life, and this time is to never say goodbye, the most important thing is such a short life, so that the octopus can not pass on the knowledge to the next generation, resulting in the direct demise of the knowledge they have accumulated.
Although octopuses are widely distributed all over the world, they do not like to live in groups, although the IQ is high, but each octopus is a lone ranger, so the entire population has no social, can not accumulate knowledge like humans, and then pass on knowledge, let alone learn useful experience from other octopuses.
It can be said that every octopus has to explore the world from scratch from scratch, learn from scratch, grow and die alone, until one day it is praised by humans as a "true fragrance", so this extremely low degree of socialization of animals cannot surpass humans.
It is well known that mammals on land animals have much higher IQs than other animals, because only land can create better "intelligence", and octopuses, although also very high, are at best similar to chimpanzees.
And even humans have formed a civilization after leaving the ocean, and cephalopods like octopuses are difficult to go out of the ocean, after all, just to maintain daily activities, they consume a lot of oxygen, so with the physical functions of octopuses, it is difficult to support them to do more things.
Octopuses have a lot of things that humans can't understand, such as they like to burrow into a small space, especially small containers such as wine bottles and crock pots, but this also makes it easy for humans to catch them and eat them.
After all, ordinary octopuses have poor fighting ability, but the taste is particularly delicious, protein is also very rich, and the most important thing is that the price of octopus is not too expensive, so it is often reduced to a delicacy on our table.
in a word:
Although octopuses are molluscs, they have strong color-changing ability, strong imitation ability, skilled use of tools, and even have a certain "logic" ability, so the IQ of octopus is very high.
And the strange body structure of octopuses makes many scientists think that they are not earth creatures, but at present, people's understanding of octopuses is still very shallow, so the research is not thorough, but the only thing that can be determined is that octopuses can never evolve civilization, nor can they surpass humans.