Opening jars, playing with toys, sneakily escaping from confinements, spraying water at electric boards to turn off the lights, and targeting people by repeating jetting water at them — while these actions seem very human-esque, they have been observed repeatedly among the incredibly intelligent octopuses!
These cephalopods have quite a large brain for their body size, which makes them capable of high-order cognitive behaviours, including problem-solving and tool usage.
Now, researchers have come across yet another interesting behaviour among the female octopuses, only this one may have something to do with the courting or mating strategies among these eight-legged creatures.
According to a recently published paper, researchers from Australia, Canada and the US have found that female octopuses sometimes throw objects at males attempting to mate with them!
Back in 2015, the research team had recorded instances of octopuses throwing things at other octopuses, but whether these actions were accidental or intentional had remained unclear. To answer this question, they revisited the same site in Jervis Bay, off the coast of Australia, where octopuses reside in large numbers.
After recording more such instances and studying them carefully, it became abundantly clear that female octopuses were, in fact, engaged in several types of object-throwing behaviour.
In most instances, the females hurled materials like silt, shells and rocks simply to remove obstacles along their way or to build nests. But in some cases, these objects were clearly thrown at nearby male octopuses, especially the ones attempting to mate with them.
Multiple instances of females targeting specific males were also observed. In one scenario, a female was seen throwing silt at a particularly bothersome male octopus at least 10 times!
Females did the hurling by grabbing materials like rocks, silt or shells and holding them under the body. The material was then placed over a siphon that octopuses use for pushing out a jet of water very quickly, and subsequently propelled at their desired target.
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The research team also noted a clear difference between the throws meant to clear our material, and the ones aimed to repel the suitors. The latter projectiles were launched between the first and second tentacles, perhaps for better precision. One female was even seen throwing a shell like a frisbee using one of her tentacles!
The male octopuses, on the other hand, were smart enough to dodge the objects, but perhaps not as quick, as they were successful approximately half the time. They remained courteous throughout, however, as no instances of males retaliating by tossing things back at the females were observed.
The findings were recently published on the bioRxiv preprint server, and can be accessed here.
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