It seems stress among octopuses is very high. Who Knew?
25 octopuses throughout Europe are being watched to see if they have a dominant or preferred arm. Maybe they are octidextrous?
The stress of living in captivity is very difficult for the intelligent octopuses. Scientists hope that play time will help the multiarmed creatures chill out and give their caretakers an insight in to the preferences.
A lot of people bite their nails when under stress; just imagine having eight hands to chew on. More than half of their nerves are located in their arms. Chewing on them to releive stress might be painful. It may be that the octopuses do a fair amount of ‘thinking’ with their arms.
The octopuses will be given toys and food and then observed to see with which arm they most often pick up an item. If they have a preference for one side or another, doing things like feeding them from their prefered side might ease some of their anxiouty.
Octopuses have been observed opening closed containers, that could explain why among those items being droped into the aquariums with the creatures are going to be jam jars. They have also been known to board fishing boats and raid their holds to eat crabs.
They will also be dropping Leggo building blocks. It isn’t said whether or not scientists execpt any building to actually take place or if they think the octopuses will be able to ’solve’ the Rubik Cube puzzle. But, in perfect ‘product placement’ the Legos are a shout-out to the opening of Legoland California Resort’s Sea-Life Aquarium. The Aquarium is set to open August 11, 2008 in Carlsbad.
In maze and problem-solving experiments the octopus shows both short and long-term memory. Some lab experiments have also shown they can learn by ‘observation’. They have been trained in some cases to recognize different shapes and patterns.
Octopuses have been observed playing in their aquariums too. They will toss toys into a circular current and then catch them on the way back around.
Sadly the octopus doesn’t have a long live span so the amount of learning its able to do is limited. Depending on the species, life expectancy ranges from 6 months to 5 years. This gives ‘a lifetime of learning’ rather short shrift.
In the UK the octopus has been granted ‘honorary vertebrate status under the Animals (Scientific Procedures Act of 1986. Surgery may not be preformed on them without anesthesia.
