Problem-Solving Masters

Octopuses crack puzzles that stump most animals. They open childproof containers, run mazes from memory, and figure out latches by trial and error. In one widely filmed lab test, an octopus learned to unscrew a jar lid from the inside to reach food sealed within — a feat that demands coordination, spatial reasoning, and stubborn persistence.

Learning By Watching

Can an octopus learn just by watching? In a much-discussed 1992 experiment, an octopus that observed another solve a task appeared to copy it rather than grind through trial and error. The result made headlines — but it has never been reliably repeated, and later researchers who tried could not reproduce it, so whether octopuses truly learn by watching is still debated.

The puzzle is sharpened by the fact that octopuses are loners. They do not live in groups, so any such skill could not have grown out of social life the way it did in primates. Whatever the verdict on copying, one thing is clear: octopus intelligence took shape on a completely separate branch of the animal family tree.