FAQ
A contribution of The Cephalopod Page
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The following is from the June 7th edition of New Scientist: Late last year at Woods Hole, Boal, Hanlon and graduate student Kim Wittenberg allowed animals to observe trained cuttlefish attack and eat a crab, and then compared their performance in the same situation with a naive animal. The observers did learn more quickly how to hunt down a crab. But they also hunted better if they had previously seen only a crab without a predation event, or even if they had simply smelt that a crab was kept hidden behind a partition. 'If smelling a crab means you perform better than if you hadn't smelled one before, and watching a predation event is no better than simply smelling a crab,' says Boal, 'then we're talking [about] some kind of releaser of an innate behavior.' |
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| There is no doubt that cephalopods are very advanced and that they can quickly learn in the laboratory. Researchers still do not agree on if observational learning occurs in cuttlefish and octopuses. Even if cephalopods don't learn by observation, they still must have the mental capacity to hold the series of behaviors that are 'released'. The difference is, this is not learning by observation, but rather the 'awakening' of an innate hardwired ability. Many insects exhibit fairly complicated behavior - however, it is hardwired in. Dr. James Wood |