Octopuses are slowly overtaking the Internet. Earlier this week, an enterprising eight-legged critter grabbed a photographer’s camera and started taking snaps of his own. Today, another cephalopod stole the spotlight at its new home.
Inky, the newest resident of the Seattle Aquairium, was caught on camera clambering over the lip of its enclosure amid the gasps, laughter, and cheering of its audience and new-found fans. An aquarium staffer can be seen helping the wily octopus back into its plexiglass cylinder home. Watch the video below:
The above clip quickly went viral, with taglines heralding the creature’s “daring escape”.
However, the authorities and staffers of the Seattle Aquarium would beg to differ.
Tim Kuniholm tells Q13 FOX News: “video has been blown out of proportion… It’s a new octopus ‘Ink’ in a new exhibit exploring his boundaries. In the video that’s been shared by the public it’s one of our staff members helping Ink bank into his exhibit after exploring the edge.”
It’s no secret that octopuses are smart critters, and there’s enough evidence floating around the cyberspace — and quite possibly, your local aquarium — to prove it so. Here’s a few more fun facts to chew on: an octopus’ brain is one of the largest any invertebrate has. The largest recorded octopus brain was about the size of a walnut — practically the same size as that of the legendary talking African gray parrot, Alex, who learned how to use more than a hundred human words meaningfully. That’s also about way bigger than most dinosaur’s brains.
As if that were not enough: an octopus’ neurons can go up to 130 million — to compare, a human’s ranks at about 100 billion. Oh, and three-fifths of its neurons aren’t located in the brain, but in each of its’ eight arms. Creepy-cool, huh?
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