Octopus (Octopi?) think and create - really

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091215/ap_on_sc/as_australia_coconut_octopus


Aussie scientists find coconut-carrying octopus


Australian scientists have discovered an octopus in Indonesia that collects coconut shells for shelter — unusually sophisticated behavior that the researchers believe is the first evidence of tool use in an invertebrate animal.

The scientists filmed the veined octopus, Amphioctopus marginatus, selecting halved coconut shells from the sea floor, emptying them out, carrying them under their bodies up to 65 feet (20 meters), and assembling two shells together to make a spherical hiding spot.

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"I was gobsmacked," said Finn, a research biologist at the museum who specializes in cephalopods. "I mean, I've seen a lot of octopuses hiding in shells, but I've never seen one that grabs it up and jogs across the sea floor. I was trying hard not to laugh."

Octopuses often use foreign objects as shelter. But the scientists found the veined octopus going a step further by preparing the shells, carrying them long distances and reassembling them as shelter elsewhere.

That's an example of tool use, which has never been recorded in invertebrates before, Finn said.

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"It's another example where we can think about how similar humans are to the rest of the world," Robson said. "We are just a continuum of the entire planet."
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there is a pic of an assembled and occupied coconut home but I couldn't get it to copy