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http://abc.net.au/news/justin/nat/newsn ... 003-80.htm

This and all the other research and observations regarding octopii problem solving makes me think that we should "uplift" octopii, not chimps and dolphins like that fool Brin thinks.

They certainly do look promising. I see a bit of an obstacle in that we know even less about cephalopod intelligence than we do of mammalian. It would make sense to start with the animals we best understand (chimps, then dolphins) and leave the octopus for when we feel more confident.


And a grammar note:
The plural of octopus is not octopii. Not even close. A Latin noun of the second declension changes the ending to -i in the plural, not -ii as has been here written. Thus viri, not virii and radii, not radiii. This would make the problem a trivial extra letter but for one minor detail. Octopus in not a normal Latin second declension noun. The word comes from the Greek oktopous. If you wanted to use the classic plural of the word, it would be octopodes. If you wanted to use the English plural, on the other hand, it is just octopuses.

Raxmei wrote:They certainly do look promising. I see a bit of an obstacle in that we know even less about cephalopod intelligence than we do of mammalian. It would make sense to start with the animals we best understand (chimps, then dolphins) and leave the octopus for when we feel more confident.


And a grammar note:
The plural of octopus is not octopii. Not even close. A Latin noun of the second declension changes the ending to -i in the plural, not -ii as has been here written. Thus viri, not virii and radii, not radiii. This would make the problem a trivial extra letter but for one minor detail. Octopus in not a normal Latin second declension noun. The word comes from the Greek oktopous. If you wanted to use the classic plural of the word, it would be octopodes. If you wanted to use the English plural, on the other hand, it is just octopuses.

Nitpicker.

And I've personally found octopuses/pii/pi/podes to be really funky critters. I played with one for about 10 minutes while diving once. Curious things and REALLY intelligent.

One of the animals I take care of for work is a local species of Octopus, we have two of them but the one I like is pretty big. Bastards can stick to almost anything and the only way to keep them in a tank is to put astroturf along every "escape route". Astroturf is the only substance the octopus can't stick to.

There's a reason Cthulhu has a squid for a head.

Whenever I click the link, I receive this message:

The page or file you've requested, "http://abc.net.au/news/justin/nat/newsn ... 003-80.htm" doesn't seem to exist on this server.

You may have followed an incorrect link, typed the address incorrectly, or the page may have moved.

Yes, they're intelligent. It's really too bad that they have a lifespan of only a few years.

I wonder what the giant ones are like. I always wanted a pet octobpus though, funky guys.

The one @ Birch Aquarium in San Diego is pretty big, bastards about the size of a large dog counting the tentacles.