Octopuses Recorded Hunting With Fish - and Punching Those That Don't Cooperate

Slashdot reader Hmmmmmm shared this report from NBC News:Octopuses don't always hunt alone - but their partners aren't who you'd expect. A new study shows that some members of the species Octopus cyanea maraud around the seafloor in hunting groups with fish, which sometimes include several fish species at once. The research, published in the journal Nature on Monday, even suggests that the famously intelligent animals organized the hunting groups' decisions, including what they should prey upon. What's more, the researchers witnessed the cephalopod species - often called the big blue or day octopus - punching companion fish, apparently to keep them on task and contributing to the collective effort... "If the group is very still and everyone is around the octopus, it starts punching, but if the group is moving along the habitat, this means that they're looking for prey, so the octopus is happy. It doesn't punch anyone..." [said Eduardo Sampaio, a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and the lead author of the research]. NBC News says the study is "an indication that at least one octopus species has characteristics and markers of intelligence that scientists once considered common only in vertebrates." Lead author Sampaio agrees that "We are very similar to these animals. In terms of sentience, they are at a very close level or closer than we think toward us."

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