Octopuses play rubiks cube

by Paul Conneally | July 7, 2008 at 10:18 am

1725 views | 33 Recommendations | 25 comments

Is your octopus left or right handed? And which hand on the left or right does it favour? Well if we were to go live in an octopuses garden as Ringo Star (who is 68 today) we'd perhaps find out. in the meantime biologists at Sea-life centres around the UK will give their octopuses Rubik's Cubes to see if this will shed any light on the matter.

Twenty-five octopuses will today begin twiddling a Rubik's Cube in the name of scientific research.

Marine biologists concede they have little hope of the eight-limbed sea molluscs solving the fiendish plastic puzzle. Instead, the month-long project at 23 Sea Life Centres across Britain and Europe will examine octopus intelligence in an attempt to discover if they have a favourite tentacle for picking things up – much as humans are right or left-handed.

Octopuses belong to the same family as slugs and snails, but scientists believe they are far more intelligent than their relatives. The researchers will give the 25 assorted creatures food and toys to play with, and record which limbs the animals use.

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Rob Peters

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 10:28 on July 7th, 2008

Finally, some worthwhile research. Couldn't they just ink the whole cube black and solve it that way?

michelle.sundvick

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 10:29 on July 7th, 2008

LotusFlower, I like this story. It's good stuff.

This is really interesting. Another fun fact: Rubik's cubes are said to be the worlds best-selling toy, having sold over 300,000,000...I just saw that on a documentary of the creator.

rpshen

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 11:08 on July 7th, 2008

LotusFlower, I like this story. It's good stuff. Haha this is interesting. Wonder why they chose octopus though.

JeffHuang

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 13:24 on July 7th, 2008

LotusFlower, I like this story. It's good stuff. hmm.. i wonder if there is more to this research. Maybe its just me, but is it really that necessary to find out if an octopus is right or left handed? Maybe this is the reason why I am not a scientist, but I hope this is part of a bigger research.

lcherry

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 14:45 on July 7th, 2008

LotusFlower, I like this story. It's good stuff.

kissing_the_beehive

at 23:26 on July 7th, 2008

WellThoughtOut

at 23:43 on July 7th, 2008

Taken on the southern coast of Athens, Greece on a long night dive. These chaps are really out in their numbers at night and are quite happy to share their domain with you as long as you respect them.

Massively clever for a mollusc with a shape shifting and colour changing ability only second to the cuttlefish!

WellThoughtOut has contributed a photo to this story.

BrianMayes

at 01:00 on July 8th, 2008

While diving in the Perhentians, Malaysia we came across a pair of mating blue ring octopuses. As we watched a third octopus jumped up and joined in. At this stage the blue spots on the octopuses were fairly faint. Then one of the octopuses changed to a dark yellow colour and a moment later it jumped away from the group, as it did so it turned white and the blue rings became a vivid blue. After that it sat all curled up in the sand, the white colour faded rapidly to a dark yellow, but the blue rings were still a vivid blue. I guess those colours show it's emotional state. So presumably yellow with vivid blue rings, means blissful contentment of a job well done. :-)

BrianMayes has contributed a photo to this story.

azzayindia

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 01:21 on July 8th, 2008

LotusFlower, I like this story. It's good stuff.

FlutterbyNessa

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 02:42 on July 8th, 2008

Good stuff! There are never enough "good news" items these days, this is a fun story.

PierPressure

at 06:14 on July 8th, 2008

jimskibrock

at 06:23 on July 8th, 2008

Mine was practicing with ice cubes...

jimskibrock has contributed a photo to this story.

adoetsch

at 06:37 on July 8th, 2008

I had never seen an octopus's eye before so I "snapped" at the opportunity to capture this moment at the Birch Aquarium in San Diego.

adoetsch has contributed a photo to this story.

mandarinfish

at 07:02 on July 8th, 2008

The mimic octopus is said to mimic behaviors and looks of other creatures in order to protect or camoflauge itself. This includes mimicing sea snakes, lionfish, flounder, etc. Octopuses are fascinating, and it would be very interesting to find out how cerebral they really are.

mandarinfish has contributed a photo to this story.

iwaterous

at 08:07 on July 8th, 2008

This photo was taken at the Monterey Bay Aquarium by my 14 yo granddaughter, Mo.

iwaterous has contributed a photo to this story.

emers1225

at 08:08 on July 8th, 2008

This picture was taken at the Rialto Market in Venice, Italy.

emers1225 has contributed a photo to this story.

LindaBCool

at 08:20 on July 8th, 2008

I took this picture at Danmarks Akvarium in Charlottenlund near Kobenhavn (Copenhagen). I believe it was a Giant Pacific Red octopus. This one had probably a 6-8 ft spread.

LindaBCool has contributed a photo to this story.

Anonymous (not verified)

at 10:38 on July 8th, 2008

I saw this was mentioned on Boing Boing today as well:
http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2008/07/octopus_vs_rubiks_cube.html

reverend_anath

at 17:35 on July 8th, 2008

This is an older octopus who lives at the Seattle Aquarium. I believe he is very intelligent. I do not know if he has been given a Rubik's Cube yet.

reverend_anath has contributed a photo to this story.

nadine068

at 01:07 on July 9th, 2008

Sleepy octopus at the Melbourne Acquarium in Australia (June 2008)

nadine068 has contributed a photo to this story.

Snubsie

at 19:15 on July 9th, 2008

While deep sea fishing, we ran across some pretty boring waters in the Atlantic sea. After waiting for a bite for some time, we decided to head back to shore. I tried to reel in my fishing pole, and thought it had gotten stuck on the bottom, only to find the string pulling away from me! After some tough work, we discovered I didn't catch a black bass or get my line stuck, I had caught an octopus!

Snubs has contributed a photo to this story.

recklessly.

at 17:32 on July 16th, 2008

Photo of Pacific Octopus from the Dallas Aquarium in Dallas, Texas. Pacific Octopi usually live no longer than a year or two in captivity, while they can live up to 10 years or so in the wild.

recklessly. has contributed a photo to this story.