When it comes to brain power, humans are at the top of the game. That’s pretty obvious.
Primates just have the most thinking power of anything in the animal kingdom. It’s all thanks to the selective pressures we faced for millions of years.
Tool use, speech, and good ol’ opposable thumbs shaped our evolution to what we are now. But primates, and even mammals in general, aren’t the only ones with impressive brain power.
Cephalopods like the octopus are quite the brainiacs, and many aquarium workers know.
In fact, cephalopods are probably the most intelligent invertebrates. And those several pairs of arms and tentacles provide some clever ways for them to apply it.
Madi here is cleaning an aquarium for a certain critter with multiple appendages.
She decided to record the whole scene for TikTok. Madi made the right call, because what the octopus did was mighty entertaining to say the least.
With her scuba equipment on, Madi scrubs away at the various parts of the octopus’ tank.
The little tentacled resident, meanwhile, is quite attention-hungry.
It swims up to her and pulls at her hair as if to say “Hey!” Madi even affectionately puts a little annotation, as if to function as subtitles for the octopus. “Play with me!” one reads.
After that little tug at her hair and goggles, the octopus now prefers a more affectionate gesture.
It reaches out to hold Madi’s hand, and Madi obliges.
Madi didn’t say what species of octopus this was. But in the order Octopoda, intelligence seems to run in the family.
The reef octopus, for instance, is pretty good at visual tasks.
It also partakes in social interaction quite a bit.
I don’t know if Madi’s friend is a reef octopus, but it’s definitely got the social side down. It can hardly leave her alone!
How’s Madi supposed to get any cleaning done this way? It’s constantly reaching out to grab her hand, hitching a ride on her hand, and showing her around its place.
Madi is impressed at the little thing’s intelligence and enthusiasm all throughout.
The brain power of an octopus is no joke. The reef octopus has been observed working together with reef fish to hunt prey. And it does this by reading and giving off visual signals to aid the hunting.
Madi’s friend is too small to be pursuing the same-sized prey as a wild reef octopus.
No, this little one seems to care more about playing and attention-seeking than hunting.
Indeed, rather than hungering for fish, this one’s hungry for attention.
It even tries to nab Madi’s phone from her, as if it even knows how to use TikTok.
But hey, with how much we’ve seen of an octopus’ brains today, I wouldn’t put it past it. It’s already got an audience.
Watch Madi make a new friend and bond with it in the video below.
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@madic_freespirit #answer to @seaniegstreams #thankyou #diver #cleaning #fyp #fypシ #octopus #octavia #playtime #aquarium #love #animals #saltwater #underwater ♬ original sound – MadiC_FreeSpirit
