CTHULHU STUDIES

Tracking a new path to octopus and squid sensing capabilities

Research reveals that the octopus explores the marine environment with sensing features that are evolutionarily related to human brain receptors

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SAN DIEGO

 

VIDEO: A CALIFORNIA TWO-SPOT OCTOPUS (OCTOPUS BIMACULOIDES) USES ITS ARM SUCKERS TO SECURE A FIDDLER CRAB. RESEARCH LED BY UC SAN DIEGO (HIBBS LAB) AND HARVARD UNIVERSITY (BELLONO LAB) HAS TRACED THE EVOLUTIONARY ADAPTATIONS OF OCTOPUS AND SQUID SENSING CAPABILITIES. THE STUDIES, FEATURED ON THE COVER OF THE APRIL 13, 2023 ISSUE OF NATURE, REVEAL EVOLUTIONARY LINKS TO HUMAN BRAIN RECEPTORS. view more 

CREDIT: ANIK GREARSON AND PETER KILIAN

Along their eight arms, octopuses have highly sensitive suckers that allow methodical explorations of the seafloor as they search for nourishment in a “taste by touch” approach. Squids, on the other hand, use a much different tactic to find their next meal: patiently hiding until they ambush their prey in swift bursts.

In a unique analysis that provides a glimpse into the origin stories of new animal traits, a pair of research studies led by University of California San Diego and Harvard University scientists has traced the evolutionary adaptations of octopus and squid sensing capabilities. The studies, featured on the cover of the April 13 issue of Nature, reveal evolutionary links to human brain receptors.

Researchers with Ryan Hibbs’ newly established laboratory in the School of Biological Sciences at UC San Diego (formerly based at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center) and Nicholas Bellono’s lab at Harvard analyzed octopuses and squids, animals known as cephalopods, through a comprehensive lens that spanned atomic-level protein structure to the entire functional organism. They focused on sensory receptors as a key site for evolutionary innovation at the crossroads of ecology, neural processing and behavior.

By looking at the way octopuses and squids sense their marine environments, the researchers discovered new sensory receptor families and determined how they drive distinct behaviors in the environment. With cryo-electron microscopy technology, which uses cryogenic temperatures to capture biological processes and structures in unique ways, they showed that adaptations can help propel new behaviors.

“Cephalopods are well known for their intricate sensory organs, elaborate nervous systems and sophisticated behaviors that are comparable to complex vertebrates, but with radically different organization,” said Hibbs, a professor in the Department of Neurobiology. Hibbs brings expertise on the structure of a family of proteins in humans that mediate communication between brain neurons and other areas such as between neurons and muscle cells. “Cephalopods provide striking examples of convergent and divergent evolution that can be leveraged to understand the molecular basis of novelty across levels of biological organization.”

In one Nature study, the research teams described for the first time the structure of an octopus chemotactile (meaning chemical and touch) receptor, which octopus arms use for taste-by-touch exploration. These chemotactile receptors are similar to human brain and muscle neurotransmitter receptors, but are adapted through evolution to help evaluate possible food sources in the marine environment.

“In octopus, we found that these chemotactile receptors physically contact surfaces to determine whether the animal should eat a potential food source or reject it,” said Hibbs. “Through its structure, we found that these receptors are activated by greasy molecules, including steroids similar to cholesterol. With evolutionary, biophysical and behavioral analyses, we showed how strikingly novel structural adaptations facilitate the receptor’s transition from an ancestral role in neurotransmission to a new function in contact-dependent chemosensation of greasy environmental chemicals.”

The second Nature study focused on squid and their wholly different ambush strategy for capturing food. The researchers combined genetics, physiology and behavioral experiments to discover a new class of ancient chemotactile receptors and determined one structure within the class. They also conducted an evolutionary analysis to link adaptations in squid receptors to more elaborate expansions in octopus. They were then able to place chemotactile and ancestral neurotransmitter receptors on an evolutionary timeline and described how evolutionary adaptations drove the development of new behaviors.

“We discovered a new family of cell surface receptors that offer a rare lens into the evolution of sensation because they represent the most recent and only functionally tractable transition from neurotransmitter to environmental receptors across the entire animal kingdom,” said Hibbs. “Our structures of these unique cephalopod receptors lay a foundation for the mechanistic understanding of major functional transitions in deep evolutionary time and the origin of biological novelty.”

Hibbs says the pair of new studies offers an excellent example of how curiosity in interesting creatures can lead to insights important for all of biology, namely how proteins—life’s building blocks—adapt to mediate new functions and behaviors.

“These studies are a great example of what being a scientist is all about—wonder, exploration and understanding how things work,” he said.

Octopus chemotactile receptor (VIDEO)

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SAN DIEGO

Research led by UC San Diego (Hibbs Lab) and Harvard University (Bellono Lab) has traced the evolutionary adaptations of octopus and squid sensing capabilities. The research teams described for the first time the structure of an octopus chemotactile (meaning chemical and touch) receptor, which octopus arms use for taste-by-touch exploration. These chemotactile receptors are similar to human brain and muscle neurotransmitter receptors, but are adapted and evolved to help evaluate possible food sources in the marine environment.

CREDIT

Guipeun Kang

Research led by UC San Diego and Harvard has traced the evolutionary adaptations of octopus and squid sensing capabilities. The researchers describe for the first time the structure of an octopus chemotactile receptor, which octopus arms use for taste-by-touch exploration of the seafloor.

CREDIT

Anik Grearson and Peter Kilian

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JOURNAL

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-023-05808-z 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Sensory specializations drive octopus and squid behaviour

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

12-Apr-2023

#CTHULHU STUDIES

First gene knockout in cephalopod achieved 

CRISPR CRITTERS

by Marine Biological Laboratory

Longfin inshore squid (Doryteuthis pealeii) hatchlings. On the left is a control hatchling; note the black and reddish brown chromatophores evenly placed across its mantle, head and tentacles. In contrast, the embryo on the right was injected with CRISPR-Cas9 targeting a pigmentation gene (Tryptophan 2,3 Dioxygenase) before the first cell division ; it has very few pigmented chromatophores and light pink to red eyes. Credit: Karen Crawford

A team at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) has achieved the first gene knockout in a cephalopod using the squid Doryteuthis pealeii, an exceptionally important research organism in biology for nearly a century. The milestone study, led by MBL Senior Scientist Joshua Rosenthal and MBL Whitman Scientist Karen Crawford, is reported in the July 30 issue of Current Biology.


The team used CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing to knock out a pigmentation gene in squid embryos, which eliminated pigmentation in the eye and in skin cells (chromatophores) with high efficiency.

"This is a critical first step toward the ability to knock out—and knock in—genes in cephalopods to address a host of biological questions," Rosenthal says.

Cephalopods (squid, octopus and cuttlefish) have the largest brain of all invertebrates, a distributed nervous system capable of instantaneous camouflage and sophisticated behaviors, a unique body plan, and the ability to extensively recode their own genetic information within messenger RNA, along with other distinctive features. These open many avenues for study and have applications in a wide range of fields, from evolution and development, to medicine, robotics, materials science, and artificial intelligence.

The ability to knock out a gene to test its function is an important step in developing cephalopods as genetically tractable organisms for biological research, augmenting the handful of species that currently dominate genetic studies, such as fruit flies, zebrafish, and mice.
Doryteuthis pealeii, often called the Woods Hole squid. Studies with D. pealeii have led to major advances in neurobiology, including description of the fundamental mechanisms of neurotransmission. The Marine Biological Laboratory collects D. pealeii from local waters for an international community of researchers. Credit: Roger Hanlon

It is also a necessary step toward having the capacity to knock in genes that facilitate research, such as genes that encode fluorescent proteins that can be imaged to track neural activity or other dynamic processes.

"CRISPR-Cas9 worked really well in Doryteuthis; it was surprisingly efficient," Rosenthal says. Much more challenging was delivering the CRISPR-Cas system into the one-celled squid embryo, which is surrounded by an exceedingly tough outer layer, and then raising the embryo through hatching. The team developed micro-scissors to clip the egg's surface and a beveled quartz needle to deliver the CRISPR-Cas9 reagents through the clip.

Studies with Doryteuthis pealeii have led to foundational advances in neurobiology, beginning with description of the action potential (nerve impulse) in the 1950s, a discovery for which Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley became Nobel Prize laureates in 1963. For decades D. pealeii has drawn neurobiologists from all over the world to the MBL, which collects the squid from local waters.

Recently, Rosenthal and colleagues discovered extensive recoding of mRNA in the nervous system of Doryteuthis and other cephalopods. This research is under development for potential biomedical applications, such as pain management therapy.

D. pealeii is not, however, an ideal species to develop as a genetic research organism. It's big and takes up a lot of tank space plus, more importantly, no one has been able to culture it through multiple generations in the lab.

For these reasons, the MBL Cephalopod Program's next goal is to transfer the new knockout technology to a smaller cephalopod species, Euprymna berryi (the hummingbird bobtail squid), which is relatively easy to culture to make genetic strains.


Explore furtherThe mysterious, legendary giant squid's genome is revealed
More information: Current Biology (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.06.099
Journal information: Current Biology


Provided by Marine Biological Laboratory

MISKATONIC U. CTHULHU STUDIES

Antarctic octopus DNA reveals ice sheet collapse closer than thought


Issam AHMED
Thu, 21 December 2023 

Today's ice sheet in Antarctic and that during the Last Interglacial when 

seaways allowed connections between octopus populations 

(Sophie STUBER)

Scientists investigating how Antarctica's ice sheets retreated in the deep past have turned to an innovative approach: studying the genes of octopuses that live in its chilly waters.

A new analysis published Thursday in Science finds that geographically-isolated populations of the eight-limbed sea creatures mated freely around 125,000 years ago, signaling an ice-free corridor during a period when global temperatures were similar to today.

The findings suggest the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is closer to collapse than previously thought, threatening 3.3-5 meters of long term sea level rise if the world is unable to hold human-caused warming to the 1.5 degrees Celsius target of the Paris Agreement, said the authors.


Lead author Sally Lau of James Cook University in Australia told AFP that as an evolutionary biologist focused on marine invertebrates, "I understand and then apply DNA and biology as a proxy of changes to Antarctica in the past."

Turquet's octopus made an ideal candidate for studying WAIS, she said, because the species is found all around the continent and fundamental information about it has already been answered by science, such as its 12-year-lifespan, and the fact it emerged some four million years ago.

About half-a-foot (15 centimeters) long excluding the arms and weighing around 1.3 pounds (600 grams), they lay relatively few, but large eggs on the bottom of the seafloor. This means parents must put significant effort into ensuring their offspring hatch -- a lifestyle that prevents them traveling too far away.

They are also limited by circular sea currents, or gyres, in some of their modern habitats.

- 'Tipping point close' -

By sequencing the DNA across genomes of 96 samples that were generally collected inadvertently as fishing bycatch and then left in museum storage over the course of 33 years, Lau and colleagues found evidence of trans-West Antarctic seaways that once connected the Weddell, Amundsen and Ross seas.

The history of genetic mixing indicated WAIS collapsed at two separate points -- first in the mid-Pliocene, 3-3.5 million years ago, which scientists were already confident about, and the last time in a period called the Last Interglacial, a warm spell from 129,000 to 116,000 years ago.

"This was the last time the planet was around 1.5 degrees warmer than pre-industrial levels," said Lau. Human activity, primarily burning fossil fuels, has so far raised global temperatures by 1.2C compared to the late 1700s.

There were a handful of studies prior to the new Science paper that also suggested WAIS collapsed some time in the past, but they were far from conclusive because of the comparatively lower resolution genetic and geological data.

"This study provides empirical evidence indicating that the WAIS collapsed when the global mean temperature was similar to that of today, suggesting that the tipping point of future WAIS collapse is close," the authors wrote.

Sea level rise of 3.3 meters would drastically alter the world map as we know it, submerging low-lying coastal areas everywhere.

Writing in an accompanying commentary piece, Andrea Dutton of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Robert DeConto of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst described the new research as "pioneering," adding it posed intriguing questions about whether ancient history will be repeated.

They flagged however that several key questions remained unanswered -- such as whether the past ice sheet collapse was caused by rising temperatures alone, or whether other variables like changing ocean currents and complex interactions between ice and solid Earth were also at play.

It's also not clear whether the sea level rise would be drawn out over millennia or occur in more rapid jumps.

But uncertainties such as these can't be an excuse for inaction against climate change "and this latest piece of evidence from octopus DNA stacks one more card on an already unstable house of cards," they wrote.

ia/md

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CTHULHU STUDIES

Unique features of octopus create ‘an entirely new way of designing a nervous system’

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICAL CENTER

 

IMAGE: A HORIZONTAL A SLICE AT THE BASE OF THE ARMS (LABELED AS A) SHOWING THE ORAL INCS (LABELED AS O) CONVERGING AND CROSSING. view more 

CREDIT: KUUSPALU ET AL., CURRENT BIOLOGY, 2022

Octopuses are not much like humans — they are invertebrates with eight arms, and more closely related to clams and snails. Still, they have evolved complex nervous systems with as many neurons as in the brains of dogs, and are capable of a wide array of complicated behaviors. In the eyes of Melina Hale, PhD, and other researchers in the field, this means they provide a great opportunity to explore how alternative nervous system structures can serve the same basic functions of limb sensation and movement.

Now, in a new study published on November 28 in Current Biology, Hale, William Rainey Harper Professor of Organismal Biology and Vice Provost at UChicago, and her colleagues have described something new and totally unexpected about the octopus nervous system: a structure by which the intramuscular nerve cords (INCs), which help the animal sense its arm movement, connect arms on the opposite sides of the animal.

The startling discovery provides new insights into how invertebrate species have independently evolved complex nervous systems. It can also provide inspiration for robotic engineering, such as new autonomous underwater devices.

“In my lab, we study mechanosensation and proprioception — how the movement and positioning of limbs is sensed,” said Hale. “These INCs have long been thought to be proprioceptive, so they were an interesting target for helping to answer the kinds of questions our lab is asking. Up until now, there hasn’t been a lot of work done on them, but past experiments had indicated that they’re important for arm control.”

Thanks to the support for cephalopod research offered by the Marine Biological Laboratory, Hale and her team were able to use young octopuses for the study, which were small enough to allow the researchers to image the base of all eight arms at once. This let the team trace the INCs through the tissue to determine their path.

“These octopuses were about the size of a nickel or maybe a quarter, so it was a process to affix the specimens in the right orientation and to get the angle right during the sectioning [for imaging],” said Adam Kuuspalu, a Senior Research Analyst at UChicago and the lead author on the study.

Initially the team was studying the larger axial nerve cords in the arms, but began to notice that the INCs didn’t stop at the base of the arm, but rather continued out of the arm and into the body of the animal. Realizing that little work had been done to explore the anatomy of the INCs, they began to trace the nerves, expecting them to form a ring in the body of the octopus, similar to the axial nerve cords.

Through imaging, the team determined that in addition to running the length of each arm, at least two of the four INCs extend into the body of the octopus, where they bypass the two adjacent arms and merge with the INC of the third arm over. This pattern means that all the arms are connected symmetrically.

It was challenging, however, to determine how the pattern would hold in all eight arms. “As we were imaging, we realized, they’re not all coming together as we expected, they all seem to be going in different directions, and we were trying to figure out how if the pattern held for all of the arms, how would that work?” said Hale. “I even got out one of those children’s toys — a Spirograph — to play around with what it would look like, how it would all connect in the end. It took a lot of imaging and playing with drawings while we wracked our brains about what could be going on before it became clear how it all fits together.”

The results were not at all what the researchers expected to find.

“We think this is a new design for a limb-based nervous system,” said Hale. “We haven’t seen anything like this in other animals.”

The researchers don’t yet know what function this anatomical design might serve, but they have some ideas. “Some older papers have shared interesting insights,” said Hale. “One study from the 1950s showed that when you manipulate an arm on one side of the octopus with lesioned brain areas, you’ll see the arms responding on the other side. So it could be that these nerves allow for decentralized control of a reflexive response or behavior. That said, we also see that fibers go out from the nerve cords into the muscles all along their tracts, so they might also allow for a continuity of proprioceptive feedback and motor control along their lengths.”

The team is currently conducting experiments to see if they can gain insights into this question by parsing out the physiology of the INCs and their unique layout. They are also studying the nervous systems of other cephalopods, including squid and cuttlefish, to see if they share similar anatomy.

Ultimately, Hale believes that in addition to illuminating the unexpected ways an invertebrate species might design a nervous system, understanding these systems can aid in the development of new engineered technologies, such as robots.

“Octopuses can be a biological inspiration for the design of autonomous undersea devices,” said Hale. “Think about their arms — they can bend anywhere, not just at joints. They can twist, extend their arms, and operate their suckers, all independently. The function of an octopus arm is a lot more sophisticated than ours, so understanding how octopuses integrate sensory motor information and movement control can support the development of new technologies.”

The study, “Multiple nerve cords connect the arms of octopus providing alternative paths for inter-arm signaling,” was supported by the US Office of Naval Research (N00014-22-1-2208). Samantha Cody of the University of Chicago was also an author on the paper.

 

###

About the University of Chicago Medicine & Biological Sciences

The University of Chicago Medicine, with a history dating back to 1927, is one of the nation’s leading academic health systems. It unites the missions of the University of Chicago Medical Center, Pritzker School of Medicine and the Biological Sciences Division. Twelve Nobel Prize winners in physiology or medicine have been affiliated with the University of Chicago Medicine. Its main Hyde Park campus is home to the Center for Care and Discovery, Bernard Mitchell Hospital, Comer Children’s Hospital and the Duchossois Center for Advanced Medicine. It also has ambulatory facilities in Orland Park, South Loop, Homewood and River East as well as affiliations and partnerships that create a regional network of care. UChicago Medicine offers a full range of specialty-care services for adults and children through more than 40 institutes and centers including an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center. Together with Harvey-based Ingalls Memorial, UChicago Medicine has 1,296 licensed beds, nearly 1,300 attending physicians, over 2,800 nurses and about 970 residents and fellows.

Visit UChicago Medicine’s health and science news blog at www.uchicagomedicine.org/forefront.

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JOURNAL

Current Biology

DOI

10.1016/j.cub.2022.11.007 

CTHULHU STUDIES

Octopuses and their relatives are a new animal welfare frontier

Photo by Masaaki Komori on Unsplash

The Conversation

December 27, 2024

We named him Squirt – not because he was the smallest of the 16 cuttlefish in the pool, but because anyone with the audacity to scoop him into a separate tank to study him was likely to get soaked. Squirt had notoriously accurate aim.


As a comparative psychologist, I’m used to assaults from my experimental subjects. I’ve been stung by bees, pinched by crayfish and battered by indignant pigeons. But, somehow, with Squirt it felt different. As he eyed us with his W-shaped pupils, he seemed clearly to be plotting against us

. 

A common cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) in Portugal’s Arrábida Natural Park.

Diego Delso/Wikipedia, CC BY-SA

Of course, I’m being anthropomorphic. Science does not yet have the tools to confirm whether cuttlefish have emotional states, or whether they are capable of conscious experience, much less sinister plots. But there’s undeniably something special about cephalopods – the class of ocean-dwelling invertebrates that includes cuttlefish, squid and octopus.

As researchers learn more about cehpalopods’ cognitive skills, there are calls to treat them in ways better aligned with their level of intelligence. California and Washington state both approved bans on octopus farming in 2024. Hawaii is considering similar action, and a ban on farming octopus or importing farmed octopus meat has been introduced in Congress. A planned octopus farm in Spain’s Canary Islands is attracting opposition from scientists and animal welfare advocates.

Critics offer many arguments against raising octopuses for food, including possible releases of waste, antibiotics or pathogens from aquaculture facilities. But as a psychologist, I see intelligence as the most intriguing part of the equation. Just how smart are cephalopods, really? After all, it’s legal to farm chickens and cows. Is an octopus smarter than, say, a turkey? 

A deepwater octopus investigates the port manipulator arm of the ALVIN submersible research vessel. NOAA, CC BY

A big, diverse group

Cephalopods are a broad class of mollusks that includes the coleoids – cuttlefish, octopus and squid – as well as the chambered nautilus. Coleoids range in size from adult squid only a few millimeters long (Idiosepius) to the largest living invertebrates, the giant squid (Architeuthis) and colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis) which can grow to over 40 feet in length and weigh over 1,000 pounds.

Some of these species live alone in the nearly featureless darkness of the deep ocean; others live socially on active, sunny coral reefs. Many are skilled hunters, but some feed passively on floating debris. Because of this enormous diversity, the size and complexity of cephalopod brains and behaviors also varies tremendously.

Almost everything that’s known about cephalopod cognition comes from intensive study of just a few species. When considering the welfare of a designated species of captive octopus, it’s important to be careful about using data collected from a distant evolutionary relative. 

Marine biologist Roger Hanlon explains the distributed structure of cephalopod brains and how they use that neural power.

Can we even measure alien intelligence?

Intelligence is fiendishly hard to define and measure, even in humans. The challenge grows exponentially in studying animals with sensory, motivational and problem-solving skills that differ profoundly from ours.

Historically, researchers have tended to focus on whether animals think like humans, ignoring the abilities that animals may have that humans lack. To avoid this problem, scientists have tried to find more objective measures of cognitive abilities.

One option is a relative measure of brain to body size. The best-studied species of octopus, Octopus vulgaris, has about 500 million neurons; that’s relatively large for its small body size and similar to a starling, rabbit or turkey.

More accurate measures may include the size, neuron count or surface area of specific brain structures thought to be important for learning. While this is useful in mammals, the nervous system of an octopus is built completely differently.

Over half of the neurons in Octopus vulgaris, about 300 million, are not in the brain at all, but distributed in “mini-brains,” or ganglia, in the arms. Within the central brain, most of the remaining neurons are dedicated to visual processing, leaving less than a quarter of its neurons for other processes such as learning and memory.

In other species of octopus, the general structure is similar, but complexity varies. Wrinkles and folds in the brain increase its surface area and may enhance neural connections and communication. Some species of octopus, notably those living in reef habitats, have more wrinkled brains than those living in the deep sea, suggesting that these species may possess a higher degree of intelligence.

Holding out for a better snack

Because brain structure is not a foolproof measure of intelligence, behavioral tests may provide better evidence. One of the highly complex behaviors that many cephalopods show is visual camouflage. They can open and close tiny sacs just below their skin that contain colored pigments and reflectors, revealing specific colors. Octopus vulgaris has up to 150,000 chromatophores, or pigment sacs, in a single square inch of skin.

Like many cephalopods, the common cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) is thought to be colorblind. But it can use its excellent vision to produce a dizzying array of patterns across its body as camouflage. The Australian giant cuttlefish, Sepia apama, uses its chromatophores to communicate, creating patterns that attract mates and warn off aggressors. This ability can also come in handy for hunting; many cephalopods are ambush predators that blend into the background or even lure their prey.

The hallmark of intelligent behavior, however, is learning and memory – and there is plenty of evidence that some octopuses and cuttlefish learn in a way that is comparable to learning in vertebrates. The common cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis), as well as the common octopus (Octopus vulgaris) and the day octopus (Octopus cyanea), can all form simple associations, such as learning which image on a screen predicts that food will appear.

Some cephalopods may be capable of more complicated forms of learning, such as reversal learning – learning to flexibly adjust behavior when different stimuli signal reward. They may also be able to inhibit impulsive responses. In a 2021 study that gave common cuttlefish a choice between a less desirable but immediate snack of crab and a preferred treat of live shrimp after a delay, many of the cuttlefish chose to wait for the shrimp.

Cuttlefish perform in an experiment adapted from the Stanford “marshmallow test,” which was designed to see whether children could practice delayed gratification.

A new frontier for animal welfare

Considering what’s known about their brain structures, sensory systems and learning capacity, it appears that cephalopods as a group may be similar in intelligence to vertebrates as a group. Since many societies have animal welfare standards for mice, rats, chickens and other vertebrates, logic would suggest that there’s an equal case for regulations enforcing humane treatment of cephalopods.

Such rules generally specify that when a species is held in captivity, its housing conditions should support the animal’s welfare and natural behavior. This view has led some U.S. states to outlaw confined cages for egg-laying hens and crates too narrow for pregnant sows to turn around.

Animal welfare regulations say little about invertebrates, but guidelines for the care and use of captive cephalopods have started to appear over the past decade. In 2010, the European Union required considering ethical issues when using cephalopods for research. And in 2015, AAALAC International, an international accreditation organization for ethical animal research, and the Federation of European Laboratory Animal Science Associations promoted guidelines for the care and use of cephalopods in research. The U.S. National Institutes of Health is currently considering similar guidelines.

The “alien” minds of octopuses and their relatives are fascinating, not the least because they provide a mirror through which we can reflect on more familiar forms of intelligence. Deciding which species deserve moral consideration requires selecting criteria, such as neuron count or learning capacity, to inform those choices.

Once these criteria are set, it may be well to also consider how they apply to the rodents, birds and fish that occupy more familiar roles in our lives.

Rachel Blaser, Professor of Neuroscience, Cognition and Behavior, University of San Diego

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

CTHULHU STUDIES
New scientific paper claims octopuses are actually aliens from outer space

Joshua Hawkins
Wed, January 26, 2022


Octopuses are from space. I know, that sounds like the opening line of a cheesy science fiction movie from the black and white days of Hollywood. But it’s actually the main part of the argument behind a research paper published in an actual peer-reviewed journal. The paper was published in the journal Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology. Titled Cause of the Cambrian Explosion – Terrestrial or Cosmic?, the paper digs deep into the origin of life on Earth.

As a result, it posits that life began thanks to a rain of retroviruses, which literally fell from space. Those retroviruses then added new DNA sequences to terrestrial genomes, which the paper says further drove mutagenic change.

Paper claims octopuses are from space

wunderpus

Where things start to get really interesting, though, is when the paper starts to discuss the arrival of cephalopods. The paper itself claims that certain cephalopods like octopuses, squid, and others arrived on the planet by falling from space, frozen in a kind of stasis.

“Thus the possibility that cryopreserved squid and/or octopus eggs, arrived in icy bolides several hundred million years ago should not be discounted,” the paper reads. The authors of the paper say that the octopus and other creatures benefit from biological features that appear to have been derived from “some type of pre-existence.”

The idea that life originated beyond Earth isn’t exactly a new one. As Stephen Fleischfresser points out in a post about the paper from 2018, the theory of panspermia has been around since Ancient Greece. However, this is perhaps one of the first times that we’ve seen scientists claiming that octopuses are from space.

Raising eyebrows

An octopus on the sea floor

It is, honestly, an exciting idea, that octopuses are from space. After all, there’s still a lot that we don’t know about the origin of life. Or even whether life exists beyond our own planet. Sure, we’re slowly discovering more about the universe. But this paper fails to put itself above any of the other theories we have out there.

Keith Baverstock, a medical researcher with the University of Eastern Finland, reviewed the paper. In his review, Baverstock stated that there is indeed a lot of evidence that makes the thesis plausible. However, he said that this isn’t how science advances. Because so much of the evidence is not definitive, this thesis only adds to the mystery surrounding the origin of life. In fact, nothing in the paper’s summary really helps us better understand the history of life on our planet. It only adds more conjectures to the already overflowing pot of theories that science has birthed over the years. (via ScienceAlert)

Still, there’s something interesting about the possibility that octopuses are from space. Sure, it might sound crazy, but the authors of this paper have presented a lot of interesting evidence for other scientists to mull over. Of course, it’s going to take a lot to actually prove it, too. And, singling out one specific group of animals could be making the focus far too narrow to actually prove anything. For now, all we can do is look back at the paper and watch to see what other evidence these scientists might bring forward in the future.

See the original version of this article on BGR.com

ICYMI CTHULHU STUDIES

Octopus ancestors lived before era of dinosaurs, study shows

by Christina Larson

An octopus swims at the zoo in Frankfurt, Germany on Friday, Nov. 25, 2005. In research 

published Tuesday, March 8, 2022, in the journal Nature Communications, scientists have

 described the oldest known fossil ancestor of octopuses – an approximately

 330 million-year-old specimen found in Montana. Credit: AP Photo/Bernd Kammerer, File

Scientists have found the oldest known ancestor of octopuses – an approximately 330 million-year-old fossil unearthed in Montana.

The researchers concluded the ancient creature lived millions of years earlier than previously believed, meaning that octopuses originated before the era of dinosaurs.

The 4.7-inch (12-centimeter) fossil has 10 limbs—modern octopuses have eight—each with two rows of suckers. It probably lived in a shallow, tropical ocean bay.

"It's very rare to find soft tissue fossils, except in a few places," said Mike Vecchione, a Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History zoologist who was not involved in the study. "This is a very exciting finding. It pushes back the ancestry much farther than previously known."

The specimen was discovered in Montana's Bear Gulch limestone formation and donated to the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada in 1988.

For decades, the fossil sat overlooked in a drawer while scientists studied fossil sharks and other finds from the site. But then paleontologists noticed the 10 tiny limbs encased in limestone.

The well-preserved fossil also "shows some evidence of an ink sac," probably used to squirt out a dark liquid cloak to help to evade predators, just like modern octopuses, said Christopher Whalen, an American Museum of Natural History paleontologist and co-author of the study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.

The creature, a vampyropod, was likely the ancestor of both modern octopuses and vampire squid, a confusingly named marine critter that's much closer to an octopus than a squid. Previously, the "oldest known definitive" vampyropod was from around 240 million years ago, the authors said.

The scientists named the fossil Syllipsimopodi bideni, after President Joe Biden.

Whether or not having an ancient octopus—or vampire squid—bearing your name is actually a compliment, the scientists say they intended admiration for the president's science and research priorities.New species of extinct vampire-squid–like cephalopod is the first of its kind with ten functional arms

More information: Christopher Whalen, Fossil coleoid cephalopod from the Mississippian Bear Gulch Lagerstätte sheds light on early vampyropod evolution, Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-28333-5. www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-28333-5

Journal information: Nature Communications 

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