If Humans Cease To Exist The Species That Replaces Us Could Be The Octopus

In Ray Nayler’s science fiction novel, The Mountain in the Sea, he describes a world of the future where hyper-intelligent octopuses have developed language and advanced toolmaking skills. Nayler uses behavioural research into octopuses that show these animals have unique talents because of their anatomy and physiology. They are so different from us as to appear alien when first encountered in the wild.

Nayler’s science fiction is Tim Coulson’s reality. Coulson is a University of Oxford zoology professor who sees octopuses as our likely intelligent successors here on Earth. Why?

Several film documentaries attest to the intelligence of the octopus. I remember watching a film about an octopus raised in Dr. David Scheel’s home aquarium. Scheel is a marine biologist at Alaska Pacific University in Anchorage. His teenage daughter, Laurel, began playing with the octopus which she named Heidi. Heidi recognized the faces of different family members and demonstrated through movement and colour changes her excitement when Laurel approached the tank. Heidi solved puzzles and showed she could use tools as well as demonstrate other intelligent behaviours.

Dr. Scheel notes:

“Octopuses followed a different evolutionary path, making them different from all other intelligent animals on this planet. I am less intrigued by the differences and more interested in our similarities. What kind of a connection is possible with an animal that has three hearts and blue blood running through its veins?”

Another documentary released in 2021 on Netflix is called “My Octopus Teacher.” It follows the story of a prolonged encounter between a diver and an octopus in the wild. The innate intelligence of the octopus can be seen numerous times throughout the film. Other film documentaries on octopuses are equally intriguing showing the cognitive and adaptive abilities of the species.

The octopus is a cephalopod. There are 900 species of cephalopods. They are part of the mollusk family but are unlike any of their more distant relatives including clams, oysters, mussels, snails, and slugs.

Cephalopods include octopus, squid, cuttlefish, and the chambered nautilus. They share many common characteristics including flexible appendages equipped with suckers that can grasp objects and manipulate them. They are mobile using water forced through a siphon-like structure in their abdomen which gives them jet propulsion. When not jetting about their dexterous tentacles give them the ability to crawl across the sea floor at considerable speed. They also can change the colour of their skin rapidly.

Their many unique anatomical and physiological characteristics include:

• Nine brains, a central one, and satellite brains for each tentacle allowing the latter to work independently of each other.
• Large eyes placed at the top of their heads with visual acuity as good as humans.

• Three hearts, two that pump blood through the gills and one that circulates blood throughout the body.
• Blue blood that uses copper rather than iron to bind oxygen molecules, a characteristic the octopus shares with the Horseshoe Crab.
• A funnel that siphons waste, water and ink with the water used for jet propulsion and the ink to mask an escape when threatened.
• Eight tentacles with hundreds of adhesive suckers for grasping and manipulating objects.
• A beak-like jaw for eating and the only hard part of their anatomy.
• Skin that contains collagen fibres and cells that rapidly alter colour and texture for camouflage or to cause potential prey to become confused.
• No internal or exoskeleton making them the ultimate shapeshifter.

The intelligence of the octopus has been demonstrated repeatedly. As different as they are from us in appearance, and in the environment in which they thrive, they have acquired cognitive abilities that continue to astonish marine biologists and neuroscientists.

What can they do?

• They can do complex tasks and problem-solve by responding to visual and other sensory cues whether in the water or out of it.
• They use tools such as shells to create shelters.
• They are escape artists.
• They have great memory retention which they demonstrate in repeated problem-solving exercises, even those with subtle variations.

Not all octopuses are equal. Those who live on reefs have larger brains. Often thought of as loners, octopuses have demonstrated group strategies and interspecies communication when seeking food often collaborating with reef fish. The brain-to-body ratio of reef-living octopuses is comparable to that found in vertebrate animals and a rough measure of intelligence.

One thing they are not is long-lived. The lifespan in the wild seldom makes it to age five. They are at risk from predation from all kinds of species including humans who consider them a delicacy.

When out of the water, because they breathe through gills rather than lungs, their stays are short. Despite this, they can demonstrate good mobility on land using their tentacles for both horizontal movement and vertical climbs. When confronted with food in a sealed jar, they demonstrate great visual acuity and dexterity by opening lids to get their reward.

Professor Coulson in describing the octopus as our potential intelligent successor doesn’t imagine octopuses becoming a land-based animal. He sees them as likely to build the next civilization underwater. When you consider the future of this planet in the face of sea level rise from global warming, there should be lots of new real estate for octopuses in the future.

Sounds farfetched you think to see humanity gone replaced by octopuses? Not so much these days considering the news of late. Just in case you missed the latest, today the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists whose Security Board sets the Doomsday Clock, founded by Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer and University of Chicago scientists, moved the second hand closer to midnight, from 90 to 89 seconds. This is the closest the clock has approached midnight since it was founded and indicates we are approaching an imminent global catastrophe.

Originally, when it was created, scientists saw global nuclear war as the event that would kill our civilization and our species. Now joining it are:

• Catastrophic anthropogenic climate change and accompanying sea level rise.
• Biological threats from nature and from laboratories that lead to a global pandemic.
• Artificial intelligence advancements that threaten human existence.

If I were an octopus and placing bets, I’m not sure with the current state of human existence, that the odds wouldn’t favour me.