Great creature, or GREATEST creature?

I’ll go out on a limb and say it: the octopus is the most impressive creature on the planet. That’s right, humans. The octopus puts you to shame.

Aristotle once proclaimed, “The octopus is a stupid creature, for it will approach a man's hand if it be lowered in the water.” That’s because Aristotle was jealous. Sure, he was a smart guy. But he couldn’t cope with the fact that an octopus’s brilliance trounced his own.

Now I know you’re already skeptical of my claim. That’s understandable. Just work with me here.

How about we start with what Michael Crichton wrote in his great book Sphere:

In fact, an octopus is so smart that the biggest limitation to its behavior is its lifespan. An octopus lives only three years, and that’s not long enough to develop anything as complicated as a culture or civilization. Maybe if octopuses lived as long as we do, they would long ago have taken over the world.

The octopus does things as a three-year-old that you and I could never dream of doing.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at this 600 pound octopus squeezing its entire body through a hole the size of a quarter. A 600 pound human could barely fit through a doorway, let alone a hole the size of a goddamned quarter.

Check out this guy, who figures out how to unscrew the lid off of a jar and devour a crab. Without ever being shown how.

Then there’s the Indonesian mimic octopus, an amazing shape-shifter with the uncanny ability to copy the physical likeness and movement of more than fifteen different species, including sea snakes, giant crabs, flounders, stingrays, and jellyfish. This animal is so intelligent that it will impersonate the creature that presents the greatest threat to the predator that’s hunting it. When scientists saw the mimic octopus attacked by a damselfish, the octopus mimicked the banded sea snake, the damselfish’s sworn enemy.

That’s all great, you’re thinking, but the damselfish sounds like a pussy. Not to worry. This octopus destroyed sharks at his aquarium on a regular basis.

Other octopuses astonished their caretakers in different ways. At the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium in California, one octopus disassembled a water recycling valve and directed a tube to spew water out of the tank for about 10 hours. It flooded the place with 200 gallons of seawater.

In another story, an octopus in England got out of its cage one night when no one was watching, went to the tank next door, ate a lumpfish, and went back to its own tank. Several more lumpfish died before the aquarium workers discovered the culprit.

While in Bermuda, psychologist Jennifer Mather observed an octopus catch several crabs and then return to its rock den to eat them. After its nice meal, the octopus gathered four stones and stacked them in front of the entrance of the den so it could sleep safely.

If that’s not enough, octopuses also show distinct personality traits. Yeah, you read that correctly. Some of your friends don’t even have personalities, for crying out loud. Scientists found that octopuses confronted with the same threat alerts and food stimuli react in different ways. Some were timid, others were aggressive.

Octopuses also engage in play — "the deliberate, repeated, outwardly useless activity through which smarter animals explore their world and refine their skills." When given a pill bottle to play with, one particular octopus propelled it back and forth at least 20 times, as if bouncing a ball. Another spread her mantle and "bubble surfed" on her tank's aerator jets. Others have been known to squirt their caretakers in the face with water for fun.

Consider this: a young octopus learns on its own with minimal contact with its peers and no influences of parental care or sibling rivalry. Scientists have found that octopuses can learn how to navigate their way through mazes, solve problems quickly, and then remember those solutions.

Oh, and in case you didn’t know, octopuses are also fucking psychic. Remember Paul the Octopus? He correctly predicted the winner of each of the German national football team’s seven matches in the 2010 World Cup and the outcome of the final match.

Think about that. Paul got 100% of his predictions right. He was two years old. Other animals tried to make predictions and failed miserably. The animals at the Chemnitz Zoo in Germany were wrong on all of Germany's group-stage games. A parakeet named Mani got some publicity for making several correct predictions during the World Cup, but foolishly chose the Netherlands over Spain in the finals. Paul picked Spain. Paul was right.

Oh, and by the way, here's an octopus that can turn fucking invisible:

That's all for now, folks. See you next time.