More evidence that creatures around us are smarter than we realize.

[The Backlash Cometh]

Octopus seen collecting coconut halves, transporting them to the ocean bottom where he reassembles it for hiding:

http://www.wftv.com/irresistible/21968810/detail.html

[BrklynLiberal]

1. The creatures around us are smarter than we are.

Humans are not as smart as they think they are.

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. I'm holding out that there are noctural creatures that have learned

how to avoid us, in essence, insuring their existence.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. OH, sorry, this is a dup.

Here's the other post:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7231835

[villager]

3. frankly, they are all overdue in rising up against humanity...

n/t

[The Backlash Cometh]

7. Or, another possibility is that we will learn to be humble and adjust

our ambitions, thereby insuring the existence of our own species?

[Goldstein1984]

11. Maybe it wasn't a giant asteroid or comet

maybe the dinosaurs' extinction became inevitable when they elected as President--Dinosarah Palin.

I haven't figured it all out yet, but I think I'm onto something revolutionary.

[The Backlash Cometh]

12. Here's another take:

Once predators eat all the available food around them, they have no choice but to start on each other. So, maybe all we need to do is find a cavern to hide in and allow a Sarah Palin to take over. In twenty years time, the world will be depopulated and we can start all over again!

[Goldstein1984]

14. If we try to hide, Sarah Palin will just blame us for the lack of

food and start a control program. They'll pay people to fly around an shoot us from the air.

Side note: I live in Eagle River, Alaska. Sarah Palin lives about 20 miles away. I have to be careful, because I'm within flying monkey range.

[The Backlash Cometh]

18. You can see Sarah Palin from your doorway!

[Goldstein1984]

23. No, we chose the mountain view to the south

but it was a tough decision.

[grantcart]

5. great story loved this sentence

"I was gobsmacked," said Finn, a research biologist at the museum who specializes in cephalopods.

[orwell]

6. I for one...

...welcome our Octopus overlords!

[BrklynLiberal]

8. LOL... They have arrived.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster

[EFerrari]

9. My mom tried to tell me the other day that my dog doesn't look forward

to my morning trips to the store.

And I pointed out that not only does she look forward to them, she knows what time we usually go, she knows I have to put on shoes, a jacket, get my wallet and pick up the truck keys. She knows the way to the store and if I overshoot it, she takes a little nap while I run a different errand. She knows there are treats in that store and when we get there, she sits up very straight and smiles as fetchingly as possible.

My dog is smarter than Mom and me put together. lol

[The Backlash Cometh]

10. Do you know another misnomer?

They say that fish are forgetful creatures, not being able to remember anything from the time that it takes to swim from one end of the tank to the other. Anyone who has an automatic feeder knows that is incorrect.

[Arkansas Granny]

13. My dog knows my schedule quite well. When I come out in the morning on my

way to work, she waits for her treat on the top step of the deck. If I come out later than usual, she seems to realize that I'm not going to work and she looks back and forth from me to the gate like she's asking to be taken for a walk. If I pick up her leash, she immediately goes to the gate and waits for me. That is the only time she ever goes to the gate because she knows that she's not allowed to pass through it unless she has her leash on.

If I tell her it's time to go home during our walk, she starts making the correct turns to get us back to the house with no direction from me regardless what route we have taken.

[EFerrari]

15. Another thing that is surprising is how much English the dogs and cats know.

Kid knows her name, the other dog's name, the six cats' names, my mom and my brother's name. She learned the words for "horse" and "goat" since we've been at the ranch. I've never added up all the words she knows (some of them must be context dependent, sure) but she surprises me all the time.

I've tried to associate the basics with a hand signal -- something I was glad I did with my first Lab because my girl went pretty deaf in her last years. For example, sometimes the other dog wanders off because she's very old and forgets what she's doing. So I tell Kid, "Lucy?" and hold up my right hand, palm up in a half shrug. Kid is learning to go find Lucy and bring her back. Isn't that something? :)

[Arkansas Granny]

16. My dog understands a lot of words. If you talk to them a lot, they learn to

associate words with specific objects or actions just due to repetition and consistency. It seems to me that most dogs that are talked to a lot understand a vocabulary similar to an average 2 year old. I talk to my dog all the time and just keep up a running conversation when we are out on our walks and can tell from her actions that she knows what I'm talking about much of the time.

[The Backlash Cometh]

20. We have to spell out d-o-g because she knows we're talking about her

if we say it.

[Marr]

17. Octopii are very sharp. We kept having fish go missing from

different aquariums, and it took forever to realize what was happening. An octopus in another aquarium was waiting for people to go home at night, at which point he opened the lid on his aquarium, crawled out, crawled into the other aquarium, enjoyed some munchies, then crawled back home.

[el_bryanto]

19. That's not a creature around me, and thank goodness.

Octopi are bad neighbors with ink squirting and cluttering up their lawns with coconut halves. They drive real estate prices down, you know?

Bryant

[The Backlash Cometh]

21. No one can drive real estate prices down faster than Wall Street.

[el_bryanto]

22. Well I don't live next to Wall Street either. n/t

[mdmc]

24. --

[Hidden Stillness]

25. A Few More Examples--Birds, etc.

There are films and videos of chimpanzees and orangutans using small sticks to reach into mounds of sand or dirt to get termites and other insects, to eat. I saw a video on some animal program of a group of elephants (matriarchal animals) crossing a river to reach food. When most of the group had crossed, waiting for one baby who was afraid to get into the river and cross it, a few older elephants went across to try to help the baby by going back across with it. Over and over that happened. The baby was just too scared. Know what happened next? Instead of leaving, or forcing it, the entire group, after the leader, went BACK across the river, to the baby, and searched for food on that side, so the baby did not have to cross. Sometimes, they are superior to us.

Everybody who has dogs knows that they understand words and react to them, and that they can tell when you are preparing to leave; you just act different even when you try not to. What was really a revelation to me, though, was some years ago when I had one window in the house with a ripped screen (since replaced). After a while, sparrows started building nests in the windowsill, going in and out through the hole in the screen. I left it that way for years, and really got a sense of how they live. They were so smart, they propped a small branch in the edge part of the hole in the screen, to use to fly off from to go outside, and also to wait for each other to come and go, to feed the babies. When that one eventually fell off, they put another one there. Both parents feed the babies and when one is out, the other is in the nest. They called to each other, and when one came in to replace the other parent, they made a very quiet little whistle peep sound, like "It's all right, it's me, back," and they would then change. When it rained and the whole family was in this "cave" type nest they build, you could hear them all "talking." They were all remarkably gentle with each other, and I came to love the way they act. People think of sparrows as dull, "ugly" birds, or pests--and they do scare away the shyer birds--but I came to have a lot of respect and love for them, studying them all this time, and how they treat each other.