Ocean wonders

Can octopuses use tools? 10 incredible facts about these creatures

Image: Maximillian Conacher

Have you ever wondered how octopuses live? How do they hunt, feed, and escape predators? They may not be the cutest animals on Earth, but it turns out they are able to do incredible things! Recent discoveries have revealed that octopuses are much more intelligent than we ever thought. These creatures can evaluate options, strategize, and even recognize other animals, including humans! If you want to learn more, join us as we reveal these 10 surprising secrets about the life of octopuses!

Image: Ashleigh Joy Photography

Today, we can find several species of octopus in our oceans, but this doesn't mean that they are something recent. In fact, it's quite the opposite.

Octopuses have been around for a long, long time. The oldest known relative of cephalopods dates back about 330 million years. That's a really long time ago! This ancient fossil, discovered in what is now Fergus County, Montana, belonged to a creature with ten arms.

So much time navigating the seas has served them well, allowing octopuses to develop skills we humans can only dream of.

Image: Roger Darnell

Chameleons might be famous for their camouflage skills, but they're not the only ones with this superpower. Blending into the surroundings and becoming practically invisible is an art practiced by octopuses, too.

Even though they have many arms to hide -8, to be exact- this is not a problem for octopuses when it comes to camouflage. Octopus skin is quite different from ours: they have special cells called chromatophores that let them change not only the color of their skin but also the texture! And that's not all; this process only takes a couple of seconds, adapting their colors and textures to blend with sand, corals, rocks, and any other surface.

Image: Heidi Bruce

Octopuses not only blend in with the colors and shapes of their surroundings but can also mimic other creatures. That's right, they are masters of disguise.

Like a comic book villain who changes appearance to trick others, the mimic octopus can alter its color and shape to resemble other animals in its environment, often choosing to impersonate the shapes of the creatures most feared and avoided by predators.

This octopus can imitate, for example, a venomous sea snake by sporting stripes of different colors and wiggling its arms in a snake-like dance, copying both its appearance and behavior!

Image: Αντωνης Κοροτσάκης

To imitate and adapt, octopuses need to be aware of their surroundings and recognize different places and animals. And they do it.

Octopuses can recognize other sea creatures, and some research even suggests they might recognize humans. There have been documented cases where researchers return to visit the same octopus in the sea, and the octopus often develops a gradual trust in them. Amazing!

There's a reason for all this: besides their excellent vision and sensory perception, octopuses also have an exceptional memory that helps them retain and use new information.

Image: Aaron Burden

Certain abilities are clear signs of high intelligence in animals, and using tools is one of those.

Octopuses use objects from their surroundings, adapting them to suit their needs. Take the veined octopus, for example. This species collects shells to use as a shelter when escaping predators or as a shield when dealing with difficult prey. Amazing, right?

But that's not all! These octopuses have also been observed gathering shells and carrying them for future use. This behavior suggests not just intelligence and good memory, but also the ability to plan ahead!

Image: Sunira Moses

All that knowledge and skills are packed into a huge brain.

As we've seen, octopuses offer much more than just 8 arms and an extensive color palette. These animals also have impressive intelligence and a highly complex nervous system, which is reflected in the large size of their brains. In fact, their brain-to-body ratio is one of the highest among invertebrates. In other words, their brain is really big, considering their body proportions.

Given all that this creature is capable of, the size of its brain is no surprise.

Image: Kostas Morfiris

Octopuses are great at problem-solving. They not only learn from their experiences but also remember the knowledge, locations, and animals they encounter, using this information for future situations.

All this makes them great learners and excellent performers. In different experiments, both in captivity and in the wild, octopuses have demonstrated their ability to open jars, navigate through mazes with ease, and elaborate complex strategies for hunting, among other surprising behaviors. Many octopuses, for example, hide near the paths of passing crabs and wait for the perfect moment to launch a surprise attack. A real ambush!

Image: rivage

A single heart isn't enough to keep a large brain, a mutable body, and 8 long tentacles irrigated.

That is why octopuses have the privilege of possessing no less than 3 hearts, all with a well-defined function. 2 of these hearts are responsible for pumping blood to the gills for oxygenation. Then, the third heart, the systemic heart, circulates the oxygenated blood throughout the rest of the body.

Want to know more? The third heart stops beating when the octopus swims!

Image: Yaselyn Perez

There's a lot we can say about octopuses, but calling them selfish isn't one of them. Why? Well, let's see.

When octopus mothers lay their eggs, they reserve all their focus, dedication, and energy to caring for them. The mother cleans, protects, and arranges the eggs, never taking her eyes off them. In doing so, it abandons all other activities, even stopping eating entirely.

Unfortunately, by not eating, the octopus becomes weak and debilitated. As a consequence, once the eggs hatch, the mother often doesn't survive.

Image: engin akyurt

Octopuses might not be royalty, but they do have blue blood! That's right; these creatures never stop surprising us. First, they have 3 hearts, and now they show us blood that's literally blue!

How is it different from our blood? Human blood contains hemoglobin, which has iron and gives it its characteristic red color. On the other hand, the blood that circulates in the incredible bodies of octopuses contains a protein called hemocyanin, which is what makes the difference. Hemocyanin contains copper, which gives the blood its blue color when it's oxygenated.

Behind-the-scenes secrets

What do Star Wars and the Vatican have in common? Here's the answer

Image: Alvaro Palacios

There's a lot more to movies than what we see on the big screen. As viewers, we get to enjoy the finished product, but the amount of work that goes into making a film is huge. And along the way, plenty of surprising things happen on set—some you’d never imagine! From unscripted slaps to actors stepping in to save their co-stars' lives, here are 10 unusual behind-the-scenes moments from some of our favorite movies.

Image: Carrie Fisher (aka Princess Leia) by Gerald England

Dan Aykroyd is not only a renowned actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer—he’s also a hero! In 1980, during the filming of the now-classic The Blues Brothers, something unexpected happened: Aykroyd literally saved Carrie Fisher's life by performing the Heimlich maneuver when she choked on a Brussels sprout.

Image: Toglenn, via Wikimedia Commons

Margot Robbie landed the role of Naomi in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) on her very first audition. How? During a moment of improvisation, she delivered a hard, genuine slap to co-star Leonardo DiCaprio, totally surprising Martin Scorsese and securing the role. And she was only 22 at the time! Fortunately, Leo took it very well.

Image: Compare Fibre

You probably remember the enigmatic green code in The Matrix (1999). While it looks sophisticated and impossible to decipher, production designer Simon Whiteley revealed a surprising truth. In a 2017 interview, he explained that the code was actually inspired by a sushi recipe, created using the characters in a Japanese cookbook his wife had at home.

Image: Chad J. McNeeley, U.S. Navy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

As we know, Schindler’s List is an emotionally difficult film to watch, and filming it was no easier. Director Steven Spielberg later shared that his friend, the great Robin Williams, would call him at least once a week to perform little comedy routines, helping him cope with the difficulty of directing the movie.

Image: Carlo Pelagalli, via Wikimedia Commons

What could the Star Wars universe and the Vatican possibly have in common? Well, in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999), one scene was filmed on the grand staircase of Italy's Royal Palace of Caserta. The very same location appears 25 years later in Conclave (2024), the film about the election of popes.

Image: Visualnarrative, via Wikimedia Commons

Some say things aren't as good as they used to be, especially when it comes to special effects. Remember "Edgar," the evil farmer whose skin is taken by an alien in Men in Black (1997)? It turns out the actor's costume and makeup were carefully designed to progressively decompose scene by scene, creating a realistic depiction of the character’s physical deterioration.

Image: Siebbi, via Wikimedia Commons

In American Psycho, Willem Dafoe filmed the scene in which Detective Kimball interviews the dangerous Patrick Bateman several times. Why? The director asked him to play it three different ways: one in which Kimball knows Bateman is the killer, another in which he is suspicious but unsure, and a third in which he is completely unaware. The three versions were then edited together, creating the legendary scene that leaves viewers paranoid and disoriented.

Image: Jesse Gardner

For Interstellar (2014), Christopher Nolan needed a large cornfield for the scenes on Cooper’s farm. But he didn’t use an existing field or create one digitally; he had a massive 500-acre cornfield planted from scratch! The bonus? The studio later harvested and sold the corn, earning around $162,000.

Image: NASA

Since Interstellar premiered in October 2014, only about 1.5 hours have passed on Miller’s Planet.

Okay, this might not be strictly a behind-the-scenes fact, but it’s a fun way the fictional world connects to our own. According to the film, one hour on Miller’s Planet equals seven years on Earth. That means the 11 years that have passed since the premiere amount to just 94 minutes on the distant planet.

Image: Road Trip with Raj

In the 2002 Spider-Man movie, there’s a famous scene where Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parker catches Mary Jane’s falling tray of food with the precision and speed of a true superhero. Although it looks like a special effect, no VFX were involved—the actor really did it! The catch, however, required 156 takes to get right.