Can Octopus Learn and Remember What They've Learned?

 

Octopus have been introduced to various studies to determine if they possessed long-term vs short-term memory. One well known study looked at an octopus’s ability to open a jar; the time it took for it to solve this puzzle decreased with practice, indicating that it did learn. In some species, such as the giant Pacific octopus (Enteroctopus dofleini), individuals can travel as far as seven hours from their den while still recalling the den’s location. The day octopus (Octopus cyanea) has also been seen to travel as far as forty meters (131 feet) away, before jetting in the straightest path back to its den. The common octopus (Octopus vulgaris) and day octopus have even been seen to avoid areas where they had recently hunted, showing they can remember where those spots were.

With all these awesome examples present in other octopus it would be interesting to see how well the Bimac octopus learns different habitats. If it is able to remember which habitat is which, this provides more evidence for spatial learning and memory in octopus that can then be compared to other cephalopods in the future.