Can your octopus do this?

[Gonodactylus]

I finally got a super-compressed version of the stomatopod cube video trailer for the "Fastest Claw in the West" running on one of my web pages. For all you cephalophiles, here is some "evidence" that octopus aren't alone in their manipulative abilities. The Quicktime video can be found at:

http://ib.berkeley.edu/labs/caldwell/

Roy

 

[DrMilhouse]

That's pretty cool. Almost had me for a second there.

 

[tszetela]

37 seconds!
I never broke 2 min!

 

[MickAv8r]

LOL thats hilarious!

 

[O. Eye]

Alright! Who's going to do an octo version of this!?! I would do it...but I don' t have the time...or a ceph...or a tank. But I have all kinds of encouragement. Go for it!

 

[minh_han]

That was great! So how do I train my mantis shrimp to do that? So far, he sulking b/c I took him out of my tank and he's not eating.

 

[cephalopoder]

You must work with him and let him watch you do it. He will learn from watching you. It takes a while but the quality time you spend will be well worth it.

 

[larsson]

Sorry to bring up an old topic, but is the video a joke or can they actually do that?

 

[Gonodactylus]

We didn't say they could solve the puzzle, merely stated "few others could do this with a Rubik's Cube" which is ture. Stomatopods have remarkable manipulative and visual abilities. The program (Fastest Claw in the West) that this teaser was shot for displayed some of our learning experiments where we trained animals to manipulate and smash into cubes. It was a simple matter to give a trained animal a keychain Rubik's Cube and film it trying to find the area to break to get a piece of shrimp. I took the cube back periodically and changed the pattern, eventually giving the animal a solved cube. Stomatopods are fastidious housekeepers and when it decided there was no food to be had from this cube, it threw it out. Add in some close-ups of the animal cleaning its eyes ("head-scratching"), and you have a cllip that depicts the "amazing mantis shrimp"..

Roy

 

[larsson]

We didn't say they could solve the puzzle, merely stated "few others could do this with a Rubik's Cube" which is ture. Stomatopods have remarkable manipulative and visual abilities. The program (Fastest Claw in the West) that this teaser was shot for displayed some of our learning experiments where we trained animals to manipulate and smash into cubes. It was a simple matter to give a trained animal a keychain Rubik's Cube and film it trying to find the area to break to get a piece of shrimp. I took the cube back periodically and changed the pattern, eventually giving the animal a solved cube. Stomatopods are fastidious housekeepers and when it decided there was no food to be had from this cube, it threw it out. Add in some close-ups of the animal cleaning its eyes ("head-scratching"), and you have a cllip that depicts the "amazing mantis shrimp"..

Roy

Is it possible to keep stomatopods in a home aquarium?

 

[Gonodactylus]

Certainly. Check out the mantis shrimp Special Interest Forum at this site.

Roy

 

[larsson]

Very I had no idea that's what a mantis shrimp was.