Cephalopod Week

I divide people into those who have encountered a living cephalopod, and those who haven’t. I write “living”, because calamari fritti and seafood pizza with squid rings don’t count. If you have ever been face-to-face with a living, behaving cuttlefish, octopus or squid, you will have realized that complex mental workings are not restricted to humans. Cephalopods when encountered underwater are observing us, reacting to our moves and to our body language, they are gauging us to see if we are dangerous or just curious, and they clearly are curious themselves. This is not akin to man dwelling on a worm, this is a case of human high intelligence interacting with cephalopod high intelligence, maybe not on even terms, but between two very different types of high-powered brains nevertheless.

In case you didn’t know: This week is cephalopod week. I think cephalopods are a great subject to dedicate a week to, so I am gladly joining the internet festivities. I made a best-of Pacificklaus video featuring footage of flamboyant cuttlefish, wonderpus and a small cuttlefish, all shot on Negros island in the Philippines. Enjoy:

And these are all of my cephalopod shots on Flickr, as usual you are free to use them for art & science & education under the Creative Commons license: