Octopus Video Transcript

00:00:08 Hi everyone. I'm Jackie Grundberg with Backpack Sciences. Although I have many animals, I absolutely love and find interesting. I want to share with you one of my favorites. It's not something unique, and I'm pretty sure that all of you have heard of it and even seen one at an aquarium. I'm sure you know, some facts about them, but there are some facts or stories that might surprise you.

00:00:36 Did you know that octopuses are considered the most mysterious creature

in the sea? Let's just start out with some basic facts about octopuses. The word

S octopus comes from the Greek word oktopus, which means eight foot. Some call E

C octopus' eight appendages, tentacles, but they're actually called arms. Each arm has N E

I a mind of its own. How? First, let me tell you that a neuron is a specialized cell, C S K

C 00:01:11 that processes and transmits information to other neurons and muscles. It's A like a signal, and this is how we react to our environment. When we touch P

K something hot with our fingers, the neurons on the tips of our fingers sends a C

A message to our brain that tells our muscles to move the finger. A neuron can send a B . signal 200 times per second, and each neuron connects to about a thousand other W

W neurons. W

00:01:40 Amazing, right? Because two thirds of the neurons are in an octopus' arms S

E instead of its head, the octopus can control them separately. Wow. That means one C arm can be searching for food in a crevice, while the other one is cracking open a N E

I clam and the suckers on their arms have receptors that enable them to taste what C S

they are touching. K C

A 00:02:33 Can you imagine being able to taste whatever you touched? Honestly, you P

K should have seen my notes when I was researching about octopuses. There's just so C

A much to tell you, but if I did that, this video would be at least an hour long. So I'm B going to hold off and let you do some exciting research on your own. I can't wait to hear what you find out. I'm throwing in another

00:02:34 Did you know? Okay. Did you know that octopuses, squids and cuttlefish before the Jurassic and Cretaceous period had hard shells? Losing their hard shells allowed them to be more agile when evading predators and when preying on food for themselves. Most octopuses don't have internal skeletons also. They have a soft body except for a sharp parrot-like beak on its underside,

© 2020 Jackie Grundberg. All Rights Reserved. It is illegal duplicate without permission. 00:03:03 where the arms converge or come together. (Video playing) Here's something to learn about me. I love animal behavior. I've always been interested on how animals interact, why and the very cool things that we don't understand or realize about how animals communicate or behave. There are some really amazing stories how intelligent octopuses are. Have you ever heard that octopuses are very intelligent? Intelligence means learning information and using that information that you've learned.

00:03:59 Now, there is a scientific disagreement whether nonhuman animals S

E can be described as intelligent. I'll let you decide. The most famous undersea C

N explorer, the inventor of diving devices, Jacques Cousteau and his team were E I the first to spend a lot of time observing octopuses. They witnessed octopuses C S stealing from fishermen's nets, open a jar containing food inside, and even one K

C seemed disturbed by its own reflection in a mirror. A P K

C 00:04:34 There are so many amazing videos about octopuses showing their A B

. intelligence. I put a few in the handout. In 2009 in California at the Santa Monica

W pier aquarium, workers were surprised to learn that a two spotted octopus had

W disassembled a water recycling valve and directed the tube to spew out of the W

| tank for 10 hours. Octopuses have been known to navigate through mazes

S quickly and solve problems. In an experiment when given the option to open E

C clams and mussels, N E I

C 00:05:12 the octopuses preferred mussels because they were easier to open. S

K Sometimes they use their cartilaginous beak similar to a parrot's beak to chip

C away at the clam shell's edge, and then inject poison to weaken the clam. A

P Octopuses switched techniques according to the ones that worked the best. K

C Now, this doesn't sound unique because as humans, we do that, but most A

B animals continue to try the same technique.

00:05:44 They don't learn from their mistakes or learn from what isn't working. Now think about this. Intelligent animals play. At the Seattle Aquarium, researchers had octopuses in an empty tank with a floating pill bottle. Nothing happened the first time, but after the fourth time, an octopus blew a jet of water at the pill bottle. It caused the bottle to go over a water jet and come back to the octopus. Two octopuses

© 2020 Jackie Grundberg. All Rights Reserved. It is illegal duplicate without permission. 00:06:16 did this over 20 times. This is similar to what we do with a bouncing ball. There's a famous story from the Brighton aquarium in England 100 years ago. That a lump fish would go missing every night. This went on for several days. They finally figured out that an octopus would get out of its tank at night, when no one was watching, went to the tank next door, ate

00:06:44 one of the lump fish, went back to his own tank and would sit there innocently until the next morning. I'm going to end this video with the story

about the infamous Inky, the octopus at the National New Zealand aquarium in S

E the city of Napier. He has so many news articles and even books written about C

N his big escape. Inky, a common New Zealand octopus about the size of a soccer E I ball was able to escape through a small gap at the top of his tank into an C S overflow drain pipe. K C A

P 00:07:21 The pipe ran under the floor deck for eight feet into another drain pipe. K

C He slid down the 164 foot long drain pipe that dropped him into Hawk's Bay of A B

. the East Coast of North Island. His less adventurous tank mate. Blotchy, didn't

W follow. The news media and people all over the world loved the story as it

W introduced the strength, dexterity and intelligent of octopuses. W

S 00:07:51 Seriously, I could go on and on with amazing stories and examples of E

C how cool I think octopuses are, but here's your chance to explore, learn more

N and then share your information. I've added a challenge for all you slime makers. E I

C Come up with a slime recipe and demonstration how the octopus (slime) would S

K get through a small hole because it doesn't have any bones in his body. C A

P 00:08:20 Now my daughter had some slime, but it was a little too thick and it K

C wouldn't get through the hole or b), it was too runny that it wasn't a good A

B representation of an octopus. So if you're up for this challenge, look for the directions in the follow-up activities. All right? So I'll see you soon. Bye.