Natures wonders: the brilliant octopus (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, September 18, 2018, 15:33 (2256 days ago) @ dhw

QUOTE: "But those limber bodies were a tasty treat to fish predators, so the octopus evolved ‘thinking skin’ that could melt into the background in a fifth of a second. These quick-change artists not only use a palette of skin pigments to paint with, they also have a repertoire of smooth to spiky skin textures, as well as body and arm contortions to complete their performance – perhaps an imitation of a patch of algae, as they stealthily perambulate on two of their eight arms.
“'It’s not orchestrated by simple reflexes,” says Roger Hanlon, who researches camouflage behaviour at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. “It’s a context-specific, fast computation of decisions carried out in multiple levels of the brain.” And it depends critically on a pair of camera eyes with keen capabilities.

dhw: Thank you for yet another fascinating and highly revealing article. I’m particularly impressed by the point that these are not simple reflexes but decisions carried out in multiple levels of the brain. I’m strongly reminded of the hypothesis that all such actions by all organisms may well be orchestrated by decisions made through intelligent cooperation between parts of the brain and maybe other cell communities, and maybe even by unicellular organisms. Just thought I'd mention it.

One wonders how an organism like this evolves, with a main brain and multiple subsidiary brain-lets on its own, or did it have guidance? It is soft and very vulnerable without its special camouflage tricks. It wouldn't have survived if all of this developed stepwise.