Another reality check: The cephalopods are still plotting

Cephalopod are Aware
Cephalopod are Aware (Photo credit: prizmcluster)

I’ve warned you all before, and you didn’t heed me. This is it, folks, our last chance to take a stand. The cephalopods are going to take us.

They can walk on land. I brought you this footage some time ago, but just in case, it’s here: http://youtu.be/FjQr3lRACPI Scary fact? This isn’t abnormal for an octopus to walk on land. The only thing unusual about it is that they usually do it at night when folks are asleep and can’t see it coming [1]. That’s right. While we sleep, octopi walk the land.

They can communicate. Squid like the Humboldt squid light up like christmas trees when we aren’t looking, and now we have the video footage for this (oddly, Wife and I saw this on *cough*MonsterQuest*cough*, but my link is all legit!). Think the Humboldt’s are the only cephalopod that can communicate? Hah. Video footage

They can use tools. Think we’re the only creature that can bang some rocks together? Think again. Sure, it turns out there are a lot of animals that use basic tools, and this in itself doesn’t make the cephalopods a threat. The proof’s in the nuts.

They can fly. No, we aren’t talking transatlantic or sub orbital – just 30 meters or so at a time. But can you fly that far? These guys can.

They can hide really, really well. It’s not just mimicking – it’s far more than that. The octopus in the video I’m going to link to doesn’t just change color – they change shape, texture, color, all of it. And they do it in real-time, in less than a second. Imagine the cognitive processing that goes into that. Check it out.

What’s going in our favor for survival? Lifespans. Cephalopods like octopi only live for a month, not nearly long enough to mount a sustainable threat at the in comparison immortal human race.

But they never sleep. Ever. They spend all of that time plotting and planning. Soon as they get their act together, it really is over for us vertebrates.

 


caveat lector – I’m mostly just having fun here. While all of these are fact (or reasoned from available facts that point to these conclusions), it’s no more fair to lump all cephalopods together as it is to lump all primate together. But for speculative writing audience – how far from pulling these randomly interesting facts, to putting together the scary thought that if all of these traits were present in a single cephalopod, ye gods, we would in truth be doomed as a species. Well, more than we already are.

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