Octopuses are extremely intelligent creatures; so intelligent that some scientists are convinced octopuses are alien. Now, though, these intriguing creatures have done something surprising; they’ve built entire octopus cities off the coast of Eastern Australia.
These cities have changed our understanding of octopuses. For starters, it was always believed that these tentacled creatures were loners, with jokes about whether they would mate or eat the other being made when talking about two octopuses meeting for the first time.
With this new discovery, though, scientists have revealed that not only are octopuses capable of building their own little cities, but they’re also possibly drawn to group up in the ocean, too. Researchers who discovered the discovery claim that octopuses built their cities using rock outcroppings and shell piles.
The octopuses then sculpted the cities by using shell middens. The researchers say that the outcroppings and other features of the seafloor at the two locations are most likely what helped make these octopus cities possible. The first site was observed back in 2009 in Jervis Bay, an area off the eastern coast of Australia. This site was first described in 2009 papers.
The scientists who discovered it named that location Octopolis, and it was found to have at least 16 different animals interacting with the location. Just a few hundred meters away, another site which was dubbed Octlantis was discovered. This one showed a total of 13 occupied octopus dens, with ten more unoccupied at the time.
The researchers dove down to the octopus cities using GoPro cameras to capture them. The researchers recorded nearly 10 of footage in a single day and watched the residents of the region interact with each other. This discovery is extremely intriguing and only helps to showcase how little we know about the wildlife that calls our oceans home.
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