The story of the shrimp is so interesting. And that he knew where the guy had gone! It may have been simple, and the desk was just inside the door, but that octopus would have to understand object permanence, and a lot more.

I live in a small town in South Africa. Kroonstad in the Free state province. About 100km from us is an even smaller town, Parys. Just outside Parys, next to the road is giraffe. Each time a car stops there, the giraffe will also "strike a pose". He would turn his head, or lift the one leg, again the other one. Sadly the last few times we drove passed there, he was no where to be seen. Don't know what happened to him, but I miss the guy standing next to the road.

All bow to the Octopus Overlords! They shall take over our world...

Forget robots, octopi are taking over the world

There's a fantastic documentary about their camouflaging skills on YouTube. They place an octopus in a tank with a black and white tiled floor and it's never encountered this pattern before ... Mind blown. And how their skin not only changes colour, but texture.

Time to try and find a way to expand their lifespans I think. Would be awesome to see what they can do with more time.

I'm both more fascinated and more creeped out by by these creatures. I'm off to google more.

The lifespan, mentioned multiple times in the article but never defined. :P Google says 6-8 months for a dwarf, 3-5 years for a Giant Pacific. There are probably other kinds but this is an idea, at least.

I think for those who are really religious out there - Your God is Laughing His/Her A*s Off....for myself I think they are the most unique of creatures in this Universe

Once, when I was pretty young, my mother and I discovered a baby octopus on the beach. It was grasping onto a rock. There were seagulls nearby, and we chased them off. Mom carefully picked up the rock, and gently tried to encourage it to let go. She mentioned offhandedly about how she'd never enjoyed eating octopus, and I swear, the little thing looked freaked out. I told it that we weren't going to eat it, we just wanted to help it back into the water. ... It let go. I said bye-bye and mom gently tossed it back into the water. From that moment on, I realized that octopuses (of all different kinds) are SMART.

Sometimes I think that octopuses are in fact aliens who came to earth to study humans, but didn't realize our environments weren't compatible, so they just hung around and stayed sea-bound. I mean, they are just such remarkable, intelligent, adaptable creatures, and so... alien.

Octopuses are amazing and fascinating.

They are fascinating, and I must say delicious "A la Gallega"

I loved this article so much. I don't eat sea food AT ALL and I always got a weird feeling in th pit of my stomach when folks would say "Oh I love eating those" .... it's like pork, even though I love bacon (YUM) I feel bad about that habit because Pigs are smarter than most other four legged animals. We don't eat dolphins in most areas of the world as we respect them for their intelligence and their helpfulness when times get weird for us landlubbers when we are stuck out in the ocean but octopi are fair game? Hmmmm!

Read the book "Soul of an Octopus" and prepare to be amazed!!! There are also fascinating notes about other fish and sea creatures in the book. Don't stop if it seems to technical at first; the book is about several octopuses and the people who loved them. Awesome. Written by a writer-naturalist.

If I had an octopus ha would be named Odo. (google it)

Here is the really puzzling bit. Along with their incredible intelligence, they can morph their bodies into any shape, texture, color to camo themselves. No other living thing can do this. Scientists are now asking, "Are E.T.s already here?? Right on our ocean floor???"

I have a new found respect, and slight fear, of octopods now.

Regarding the comment that they're anti-social, I recently read an article where they gave the drug Ecstasy to octopuses in an experiment and it made them react kind of like humans do on the drug. Here's a link if you want to read it: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45600372

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That video is the coolest yet most terrifying thing I have ever seen...

I seem to remember a documentary that said Octopi are very smart at problem solving and can open jars or lock mechanisms, but they have no memory and have to re-learn to open jars again the next day. Can anyone confirm this ?

Wow. Amazing creatures

I'm impressed! I'm also glad they're not land animals.

This scares the c**p out of me knowing they are this smart.

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No, the octopus did not know you were drawing her.

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Yea why post this? Everyone has heard this story and is totally bored by it