Why didn't the octopus, which has 9 brains and evolved towards high intelligence, establishes a civilization at the bottom of the sea?

If humans were to leave Earth, which species do you think could take over as the new overlords of the planet? And is there a creature on Earth, other than primates, that could develop civilizational capabilities? Is it the wolf, which is famous for its social nature, or the dolphin, which is known for its high intelligence? However, today, 009 will bring you a completely different answer.

Hello, here is the strange news spy 009, today 009 for you is perhaps will develop a civilization of super-intelligent creatures - octopus.

The most impressive thing about the octopus is that in 2010, Paul the octopus predicted the World Cup, and because of this, the octopus has a high IQ and is exposed to a global audience.

Octopus, also known as "octopus", with eight soft tentacles covered with circular suction cups, is a cephalopod mollusk, is also the Earth's species, a few hands, and feet in the head of the creature, they are not only the cheap food in the mouth of humans, but also all kinds of IQ test "regulars ", obviously soft look and not smart, but they often rely on intelligence to kill the vertebrates that prey on them, omnivorous they even eat sharks.

Just how high is the IQ to make them face the deep sea overlords are counter-kill for food?

How high is the IQ of an octopus?

To explore the intelligence of the octopus, there is scientists will octopus into a square transparent box, leaving only a 2 cm vent, and just when we thought the octopus will be the same as other creatures in general, fear of the unfamiliar environment rushed around the inside of the box, the octopus calmly opened its tentacles to explore the surrounding environment, after finding the vent, the use of their soft body structure, will be a tentacle successively After finding the vent, using its soft body structure, will be a tentacle has been sticking out of the box, and finally successfully escaped from the small hole.

This researcher carried out another test, in the octopus feeding tank into two sealed glass bottles containing crabs, not long after an octopus using tentacles will easily pull out the cork on the glass bottle, pour out the bottle of crabs and eat, a side of the octopus in seeing the behavior of "companions", also eat crabs in the same way. The octopus was not previously exposed to such structures in the bottle.

After several tests, the researchers found that in addition to the ability to think, and mimicry, they also can use, and manufacture tools, know how to crack coconut shells, the use hard coconut shells to protect themselves.

Not only that, but the octopus also has "emotions and memories", before the German city of Coburg Ocean Star Aquarium had a strange incident.

One early morning, the aquarium employees went to work and found that the electrical system inexplicably tripped, and the entire aquarium into darkness, at first thought it was just an accident, but the next morning the same situation again, to find out what happened, they decided to "wait and see" in the aquarium.

The next morning, they were able to catch the "culprit", but it was not a person who caused the electrical system to trip, but only six-month-old octopus Otto.

At that time, Otto climbed out of the glass tank, aimed at the 2000-watt spotlight spray water, a short circuit in the line, the aquarium air switch protective trip, the staff agreed that the light may affect Otto rest, out of anger, it made the "lights out" action, according to the staff, Otto every once in a while will do so.

According to the researchers' experiments and Otto every so often "lights out" behavior, we can easily see that the octopus has very high intelligence, certain learning, imitation ability, and also has emotions, and memory, of course, this is not the most surprising place of octopus, compared with intelligence, their physiological structure is more surprising!

The unique physiological structure of octopus]

You know, including people, most creatures have only one brain and the brain is located in the head, however, the octopus is very different.

They have three hearts, and nine brains, of which only one brain is located in the head, the other eight brains are in the eight tentacles, so that the eight tentacles can move independently under the control of an independent brain, but also receive signals from the head brain to work together, its flexibility is much higher than the human control of the hands and feet.

But compared to the human brain has 86 billion neurons, the octopus has only 500 million neurons, of which 200 million are located in the central brain, the remaining 300 million are distributed in 8 tentacles, composed of independent nerve cords, to reduce the burden on the brain, after all, octopus tentacles are extremely sensitive, including taste, smell, including 40 million receptors, once the 8 tentacles move together, enough to make the octopus "brain explosion", a brain simply can not handle so much information at the same time.

Therefore, each tentacle of the octopus is handled by an independent brain, and then the central brain disassembles the task and divides the work when encountering a problem.

But this is only the body structure of the octopus, the most unique of its brain composition! Although the octopus has only 500 million neurons, the construction of 168 kinds of pro-calmucin, this calcium mucin has a direct impact on the development of neuronal synapses! In other words, the brain is good, is determined by the original calcium mucin, and the octopus has 168 species, vertebrates only 70 species, and even octopus genes within the 1790 "zinc finger" genes, this regulation of the brain genes human only 764 species.

We can hardly imagine how they are only 500 million neurons in the case, to build a higher IQ than other creatures of the brain, and if humans have the same brain composition, perhaps technology will be more developed!

And in addition to multiple brains, the "zinc finger" gene is high, and the octopus also has the most surprising and buggy ability - self-editing genes!

DNA is like a tape record of all the traits of the creature, and the proteins must pass through the DNA to show characteristics such as looks, hair, etc., in short, from information to reality.

In this process a copy of DNA is produced - mRNA, mRNA carries genetic information, it will tell other proteins "what color hair should be", "whether the eyes are double or single eyelids ", and currently known organisms, only humans and octopus, can do to modify and edit the mRNA, but the two compared, humans, can only do to edit a small amount of mRNA.

This editing is insignificant, so small that they can not control the color of their eyes at birth, but the octopus can!

In 2015, by studying the DNA blueprint of octopus, researchers found that octopus has a large number of genes related to the brain, and such genes have only been found in vertebrates! Genes from vertebrates are found in invertebrates, so scientists speculate that octopus intelligence is likely due to self-editing.

With very high intelligence, memory, learning ability, the ability to edit genes and with emotions, and several times stronger than human limb manipulation ability, looks like so "perfect" octopus, why not in the ocean to produce civilization, unified all marine life?

Why can't octopuses unify the ocean?

The reason why the octopus can not produce civilization and its existence of three major "defects" related.

Although the octopus is an invertebrate organism "alien", in the constraints of natural law, invertebrates' nerve conduction speed is slower than vertebrates, while the majority of invertebrates in size and intelligence are further restricted, even if the octopus is defiant, the brain has evolved to the " extreme", but still can not break through the limits of invertebrates.

Secondly, the low concentration of oxygen in seawater is not enough for octopuses to evolve more neurons, and only 500 million neurons also determine the octopus can not think about complex issues, when they encounter difficult problems they will follow the instinct to act.

In addition to the limitations of the spine and neurons, the octopus can not produce civilization is a key factor in its life span and reproductive methods.

The average octopus has only 7 years of life, even the average fish live longer than they do, and they have a very special habit of reproducing offspring - after reproduction will commit suicide.

Whenever the male octopus and female octopus after breeding, the male octopus will begin a hunger strike, in three or four days will slowly "starve to death", while the female octopus will return to the nest to lay eggs, and often spray water on the eggs, this stage of them will not go out hunting, but still eat small fish and shrimp passing by.

After three or four days, the female octopus will be the same as the male octopus in the general hunger strike, in the absence of energy intake, they will become lethargic, slowly the female octopus will become more and more agitated, and sometimes even eat their tentacles, until the baby octopus hatch, the female octopus has long been starved to death, or will chew their own "clean".

At this time, the newly hatched baby octopus had to face the cruel fact that "both parents died", and in this case, most of the baby octopus will be born to fend for themselves, and can not learn from their parents to have the skills of survival, the lack of intergenerational communication between each other. Therefore, even if an octopus has mastered a lot of knowledge in its limited life span, this knowledge can not be passed on.

See this you may think, there are no other octopuses that can be knowledge transfer, but unfortunately, the way of life of octopuses makes them rarely have interaction between groups, many times you can see one or two octopuses in the sea, but can not see a group of octopus, and in this case, a lot of knowledge and survival skills can not be effectively transmitted, resulting in the birth of small octopus not only have to figure out again but also a great The possibility of being swallowed by other fish due to inexperience.

The slow nerve conduction, low number of neurons, short life span, and the inability to pass on knowledge, has become a key factor in the inability of octopuses to produce civilization, and because of the overexploitation of their brains, resulting in octopuses do not have too much energy to "upgrade" their limbs, soft limbs make them the easiest creatures to hunt in the ocean.

Of course, if you put aside all the limitations, it is not difficult to imagine, that the octopus can become a general existence with humans, creating a brilliant underwater civilization, after all, in the marine environment, they can do their evolution to the extreme, if they can survive on the ground, then the world is likely to "change the master", at that time in They may seem to humans and apes compared to just a little more intelligent.