[Coral-List] Yes, the Octopus Is Smart as Heck. But Why?

Tue Dec 11 20:51:39 UTC 2018

      Yup, I noticed that the "cosmic" article Magnus pointed to referred
to them having a big brain as well.  They can get through any hole they can
get an eye through, because the brain and brain case are smaller than the
eye.  Surely the other Cephalopods have similar size brains.  I would think
it is roughly the same size as a lobster brain.  One of the articles that
is linked to in the article I pointed to relates how their arms have a lot
of nerve cells in them, which appear to produce the details of the
movements while the brain just tells the arm where it wants to go.  Similar
is true in lobsters, the brain has "command neurons" which send impulses to
ganglia in the tail that have the circuitry to produce paddling motions in
the swimmerettes which do the actual swimming motions, so they have sort of
"outsourced" some of the complexity of what needs to be done to neurons
outside the brain.  I have a vague memory that the octopus brain may have a
lot of small cells, they are certainly small compared to some nudibranchs
like *Aplysia* and *Tritonia* that have been heavily studied because they
have some huge nerve cells in their brains which are easier to study.  They
are also small compared to the squid giant axon, a huge pair of nerves that
take signals quickly from the brain to the muscles in the mantle that
produce the jet propulsion for escape or chasing food.  The larger the
axon, the faster the impulse travels.  Those axons are about 1 mm diameter,
so big they look like blood vessels, and they were used to work out the
ionic mechanisms of the nerve impulse that won a Nobel Prize, if I remember.
        Brain size isn't everything, for sure.  Birds somehow mange to
economize on brain size probably because the weight of a large brain would
be a big limiter for flying, yet crows, parrots and mynas have some pretty
amazing smarts.  But the Cephalopods really take the cake for smarts in a
small brain, it would seem.  Most fish have small brains as well, yet the
actual scientific evidence on their intelligence indicates they are a lot
smarter than maybe we give them credit for.  See a paper by Brown (2015).
Another interesting essay on brain size and smarts in different animals is
at https://www.sapiens.org/evolution/primate-intelligence/
      Brown, C.  2015.  Fish intelligence, sentience, and ethics.  Animal
Cognition 18: 1-17.
Check Google Scholar.

Cheers, Doug

On Tue, Dec 11, 2018 at 6:20 AM Michael Newkirk <michaeljnewkirk at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> Wow! A grain of rice? Yeah, I just looked up the anatomy. I had no idea its
> brain was that small. "Puzzled" doesn't even begin to describe.
>
> The octopus is amazing.
>
> Best,
>
> Michael.
> Chief Editor
> WordsRU
>
> On Mon, Dec 10, 2018 at 10:27 AM Magnus L Johnson <M.Johnson at hull.ac.uk>
> wrote:
>
> > It's obvious . . they have alien origins.  No other possible sensible
> > explanation . . .  ;-)
> >
> >
> >
> https://qz.com/1281064/a-controversial-study-has-a-new-spin-on-the-otherworldliness-of-the-octopus/
> >
> >
> > Dr Magnus Johnson FHEA FMBA | Senior Lecturer | Environmental Marine
> > Science | Director of Postgraduate Taught Courses | University Diving
> > Officer |
> > New for 2018  MSc Marine Environmental Management
> > University of Hull, School of Environmental Sciences
> >
> > www.marine-biology.org.uk
> > m.johnson at hull.ac.uk | 01482 466077 | 07966 363559
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________________
> > From: Douglas Fenner [douglasfennertassi at gmail.com]
> > Sent: 09 December 2018 00:22
> > To: coral list
> > Subject: [Coral-List] Yes, the Octopus Is Smart as Heck. But Why?
> >
> > It has eight arms, three hearts — and a plan. Scientists aren’t sure how
> > the cephalopods got to be so intelligent.
> >
> > Read More... <https://nyti.ms/2DTnFOa?smid=nytcore-ios-share>
> >
> > They talk about big brains, but actually Octopus and other cephalopods
> > don't have big brains, their brains are about the size of a rice grain.
> > Which just makes their intelligence all the more surprising and puzzling,
> > it seems to me.  But the cephalopods are all fabulous creatures.
> >
> > There are links to several other interesting cephalopod stories at the
> end
> > of this story.
> >
> > Cheers, Doug
> > --
> > Douglas Fenner
> > Ocean Associates, Inc. Contractor
> > NOAA Fisheries Service
> > Pacific Islands Regional Office
> > Honolulu
> > and:
> > Consultant
> > PO Box 7390
> > Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799  USA
> >
> > Global warming will happen faster than we think.
> >
> > https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07586-5
> >
> > Nations falling short of emissions cuts set by Paris climate pact,
> analysis
> > finds
> >
> >
> >
> http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/nations-falling-short-emissions-cuts-set-paris-climate-pact-analysis-finds?utm_campaign=news_daily_2018-11-28&et_rid=17045989&et_cid=2515903
> >
> > Climate change poses major threat to the US, new government report
> > concludes
> >
> >
> >
> http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/climate-change-poses-major-threat-us-new-government-report-concludes?utm_campaign=news_daily_2018-11-26&et_rid=17045989&et_cid=2511504
> > _______________________________________________
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-- 
Douglas Fenner
Ocean Associates, Inc. Contractor
NOAA Fisheries Service
Pacific Islands Regional Office
Honolulu
and:
Consultant
PO Box 7390
Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799  USA

Global warming will happen faster than we think.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07586-5

Nations falling short of emissions cuts set by Paris climate pact, analysis
finds

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/nations-falling-short-emissions-cuts-set-paris-climate-pact-analysis-finds?utm_campaign=news_daily_2018-11-28&et_rid=17045989&et_cid=2515903

Climate change poses major threat to the US, new government report concludes

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/climate-change-poses-major-threat-us-new-government-report-concludes?utm_campaign=news_daily_2018-11-26&et_rid=17045989&et_cid=2511504