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Freedom For Fred The 70-Pound Octopus (Read 801 times)
Unforgiven
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Freedom For Fred The 70-Pound Octopus
May 26th, 2018 at 11:49am
 
It appears Octopus are more intelligent than Free Divers.

I bet this guy wouldn't have purchased and released a Free Diver back into the wild.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fred-octopus-fish-market-saved-freed_us_5b0...

Quote:
Fish Market Buys Freedom For Fred The 70-Pound Octopus
The market owner won’t sell octopus products after playing hide-and-seek with a friendly cephalopod.
headshot
By David Moye

A 70-pound octopus named Fred not only has eight arms, but possibly nine lives.

Last week, a fish market in Morro Bay, California saved Fred from being served up for someone’s supper,

Giovanni DeGarimore, owner of Giovanni’s Fish Market, makes his living selling fish and other forms of seafood. But he recently decided against selling octopus products after learning about how intelligent the animals are.


DeGarimore told the San Luis Obispo Tribune he met a friendly octopus while diving in Fiji.

“Essentially, we played a game of hide-and-seek for 15 minutes under the ocean,” he said.

On May 14, DeGarimore’s dock manager told him a local crab fisherman was selling a 70-pound octopus, putting DeGarimore in an awkward position. He said he no longer wanted to financially reward those who capture octopuses, but also didn’t want to cut up such “a beautiful animal.”

So DeGarimore bit the bullet and purchased the octopus for what he says was a couple of hundred dollars.

The octopus was named Fred and spent a few days at the fish market before being released in a safe place.

A spokesperson for the fish market told local news station KSBW TV that the decision to spare the Fred’s life was personal for DeGarimore.

“He’s an avid diver and lover of the ocean, and though Gio makes his livelihood on selling seafood, he felt conflicted when it came to these magnificent and arguably sentient beings,” the spokesperson said.

Comparative psychologist and octopus expert Jennifer Mather spoke to Scientific American at length about octopus intelligence in 2009.

“I would say intelligence means learning information and using the information that you’ve learned,” she said, explaining that this is an ability researchers have observed in octopuses.

She added that octopuses engage in play and have distinct personalities. The complex environment of tropical reefs likely helped spur their intelligence, according to Mather.

“There’s such a huge variety of situations, lots of kinds of prey, lots of predators, and if you are not armored, you’d better be smart,” she said. “The octopus has gone the smart route.”
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Captain Caveman
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Re: Freedom For Fred The 70-Pound Octopus
Reply #1 - May 26th, 2018 at 12:07pm
 
Amazing creatures those octo's.
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Unforgiven
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Re: Freedom For Fred The 70-Pound Octopus
Reply #2 - May 26th, 2018 at 12:16pm
 
There is a considerable body of evidence that Octopus are more intelligent than Free Divers. Perhaps even dead octopus.

http://www.businessinsider.com/octopus-weirdest-animals-rna-editing-super-powers...

Quote:
Octopuses are officially the weirdest animals on Earth
David Anderson and Abby Tang
May. 19, 2018, 9:00 AM   5,924

Octopuses have blue blood, can change colors, and regrow their tentacles. But what really makes them stand out is even weirder: they can edit their own RNA. Following is a transcript of the video.

Octopuses are the weirdest animal on earth. I know what you're thinking... Is it because they have three hearts? Blue blood? That they can regrow their limbs? Or how they're known to use tools? Or change colors whenever they want?

And of course, all that is cool, but it's just the beginning.

Turns out, octopuses — and their close coleoid relatives — have a unique ability to edit significant amounts of their RNA. They've been doing this since before modern humans showed up 200,000 years ago.

And while scientists aren't sure how or why it started, studies suggest that octopuses today are editing their RNA to adapt to temperature changes in their environment.

RNA is sort of like DNA editing but, in some ways, even better.

Prof. Eli Eisenberg: "You can think of it as spell checking. If you have a word document. If you want to change the information, you take one letter and you replace it with another."

But what makes RNA editing different from DNA editing is the long-term effects. Your DNA, for instance, is identical in each one of your trillions of adult cells. So, changing the code in one cell, changes it forever and fundamentally alters your genome, which is passed down to your children and every generation thereafter.

This is how the majority of the animal kingdom evolves. But octopuses do things differently, by also editing their RNA, which allows them to "try out" adaptations in the short-term without messing with entire generations to come.

Prof. Eli Eisenberg: "In this aspect, RNA mutations, or RNA editing events, are much less dangerous. You can play with the RNA. You can test many different possibilities without damaging the master copy of your genetic information."

Unlike DNA, changes to RNA are NOT hereditary. It also means that you can target certain body parts and edit the RNA in them individually. In fact, research groups have discovered that octopuses tend to edit the RNA in their brain tissue more than anywhere else.

Which has led some experts to hypothesize this is why octopuses are the most intelligent of all invertebrates on the planet.

Now, most organisms — including humans — have the enzyme necessary for RNA editing but the general consensus is it's by and large just not worth the effort. Humans, for example, have around 10 RNA editing sites, but octopuses have tens of thousands.

Prof. Eli Eisenberg: "It's really a completely new story."

So, octopuses and their coleoid cousins truly are bizarre but it may not be the case for too much longer.

Scientists have recently proven ways of using CRISPR to edit RNA, too. Perhaps they can learn a thing or two from the experts.
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Captain Caveman
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Re: Freedom For Fred The 70-Pound Octopus
Reply #3 - May 26th, 2018 at 12:41pm
 
Ahh. I see. Trolling for a bite.
Good luck.
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Grappler Truth Teller Feller
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Re: Freedom For Fred The 70-Pound Octopus
Reply #4 - May 28th, 2018 at 9:16am
 
Good story about the octopus - Freediver holds a fish, not an octopus...
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“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
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Gnads
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Re: Freedom For Fred The 70-Pound Octopus
Reply #5 - May 28th, 2018 at 9:22am
 
Un4 has one cephalopod trait .... only one.

He's very slimey.
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"When you are dead, you do not know you are dead. It's only painful and difficult for others. The same applies when you are stupid." ~ Ricky Gervais
 
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