Octopuses are the most intelligent of all invertebrates, standing out for a series of exceptional biological characteristics. They have three hearts, which allow them to pump oxygenated blood very efficiently. They also have a highly developed brain and powerful suction cups on the inside of their eight arms, capable of manipulating objects and capturing prey with precision.
The Mayan octopus, an endemic and little-known species of the Yucatan Peninsula, has begun to attract the attention of scientists from the Faculty of Psychology of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
This fascinating creature has been the subject of research to understand better its object recognition memory and the ontogenetic development (development from conception to death) of that memory.
The academic work by UNAM scientists is titled Novel Object Recognition in Octopus Maya and was published in Animal Cognition a journal that offers current research on all aspects of animal cognition and humans in an evolutionary framework.
The study was published on February 21, 2023, by psychologists Fabián Vergara Ovalle and Hugo Sánchez Castillo, thanks to an experiment carried out by the former.
“For several days I went to feed a Mayan octopus, and he later understood the relationship. I knew that if I was around, that meant food. It may seem like something ordinary, but this seemed very curious to us and sparked an interest in knowing more about how his brain worked and the degree of intelligence he has,” he indicated in an interview for UNAM Global magazine.
The Mayan octopus has a semi-centralized nervous system, that is, multiple interconnected lobes in the center of its body. Also, a lot of neurons and ganglia are distributed throughout the body. That is why each of its arms has the autonomy to perceive information and respond to external stimuli.
“This tells us that there is no single processing as is usual in vertebrates, but rather it is done throughout the body and the knowledge that one arm processes is transferred to the others,” mentions the specialist.
Sánchez Castillo focused on studying the ability of these curious animals to recognize new objects. Since they do not have a hippocampus, insular cortex, perirhinal cortex, or medial prefrontal cortex, they cannot have memory capacity.
However, octopuses have object recognition memory. This means they are aware of where they are and the changes happening around them, in addition to interacting with them visually and tactilely.
This study shows that two-month-old and older Mayan octopuses can differentiate between a new object and a familiar one, but one-month-old octopuses cannot. Furthermore, the scholars observed that octopuses use vision and tactile exploration of novel objects to achieve object recognition. On the other side, familiar objects only need to be explored visually. As it grows, it adapts better to its environment, a skill that can help it survive. “The Mayan octopus, like the others, has displacement behaviors established according to the context in which they find themselves, whether it is a situation of attack, flight, or search for food. So, this animal makes decisions based on the search for its well-being and that stimulates it because it is something that it builds,” commented the specialist.
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