Do you think marine life might develop intelligence to rival humans?

I think she already has! :-)

Humans are only the third most intelligent species on this planet. Dolphins come in second.

I think if octopodes didn’t have such short life spans (generally only 6 months-2 years) they would be a lot more intelligent than they already are.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Mgv_sm-_dY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQwJXvlTWDw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8oQBYw6xxc

My peacock mantis shrimp was quite intelligent IMO as well. I used to take little plastic jars and fill them with salt water and put live crabs or shrimp in there for her to eat. At first she would just try and beat the crap out of the container to break it open(which never worked since I got a soft flexible plastic) so I would take the container out get her attention and just screw/unscrew the lid for a while. After a couple weeks she understood what was going on and was able to unscrew the lid to retrieve her food. Then I would screw the lid on and place rubber bands around the container so she would remove them and then unscrew the lid.

Ohh and here is a really cool video about cuttlefish

Dolphins are not intelligent at all, they can’t even make simple decisions, instead they have to flipper coin.

Were they to have need for wheels and fire, then perhaps yes. But just as we create watercraft of all sorts to explore the depths, I can see the Octopi, operating some form of machine, rising up onto the shoreline to explore dryland. Perhaps instead of wheels, she uses crablike arms to navigate the terrain. Perhaps she utilizes hydrogen for fuel. Perhaps she doesn’t like what she sees, and quickly returns home to warn the children.

I think it has.

^^I meant you!

“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much – the wheel, New York, wars and so on – whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man – for precisely the same reasons.” – Douglas Adams

@janbb OK, well, maybe not since I didn’t read your answer first!

@marinelife Psst -sent you the other question we discussed.

I think Dolphins would give a lot more lurve and GQ’s around here. They always seem to be in agreement smiling at one another.

Ahahah this has to be one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time.

@downtide yea but the dolphins still have nothing on mice :P

@uberbatman: I love your memories of Vladimira. I often felt like her surrogate granny, particularly after you discovered that she was Vladimira rather than Vladimir.

@gailcalled :) I’ve been thinkin about her a lot lately. I miss her. I just re-found this video of her molting that I uploaded ages ago.

In an infinite Universe of infinite possibilities, statistically speaking, this scenario must already exist.

@janbb Hear! Hear! Hat’s off to @marinelife

@Rarebear And the king of the IQ mountain is…?

@uberbatman Great info about the peacock mantis shrimp. What kind of tank did you keep her in to prevent her breaking the tank walls? And thanks for all the great cephalopod links. THey are truly fascinating creatures.

@ucme Flipper was a name humans assigned. It doesn’t sound anything like their actual name calls.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies With what we humans have done to dry land, smart octopi.http://www.fluther.com/161572/do-you-think-marine-life-might-develop-intelligence-to-rival-humans/#quip2759322

@marinelife Living proof.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Just never piss a dolphin off. With a mouth that big and that full of needle sharp teeth, you don’t want to meet an angry dolphin.

@uberbatman Ha! Yes, cuttlefish camo only goes so far.

@gailcalled & @uberbatman Thanks for the video introducing me to Vladimira.

@LKidKyle1985 Well, the Universe probably falls well short of being infinite, but it is certainly big enough to allow for just about every possibility conceivable. It is big enough, for instance, to have spawned an entity that can ask how big it is.

@ETpro I kept her in a normal tank, nothing fancy. The only real thing I did differently was put down a piece of acrylic under the substrate in case she decided to dig one day I didn’t want her breaking through the bottom of the tank. As for the walls it was never a problem as long as you didn’t taunt her through the glass :P

@uberbatman They don’t tend to keep them in large aquariums because the animals tend to eat everything else in there, and they also break through even massively thick aquarium walls. They attack prey by firing their fore-claws ahead faster than the muzzle velocity of a 22 caliber rifle round. Even when they fail to hit the prey, the shock wave is sufficient to immobilize their target till they can dismember and eat them. Pretty impressive little critters. Deadly, but beautiful.

@ETpro Ohhh I know all about them :P Here is a really good TED Talk about Mantis Shrimp.

Believe it or not I housed vladimira with a porcupine puffer. So in one animal (vladimira) ya had a killing machine and the other (the puffer) was an animal that ate primarily hard shelled invertebrate. They got along just fine surprisingly. I think a lot of that has to do with raising them both together from a very young age.

@uberbatman Thanks for that. Fascinating.

Extremely unlikely.

And we should not forget that all intelligent marine life forms used to be land animals.

@mattbrowne Right. I was, once.

@etpro white laboratory mice.

@mattbrowne Do I detect a note of hubris in that answer? Fill me in on when cuttlefish, squid, and octopi were land animals.

And how about @uberbatman’s Peacock Mantis Shrimp. I am pretty sure shrimp have spent their entire existence as aquatic animals.

@ETpro On a technical note, mantis shrimp are not actually related to shrimp, they’re stomatopods, but still no lineage on land.

@uberbatman Oh, quite right.

I was talking about sea mammals. From what I know invertebrates can’t compete with dolphins, in terms of their intelligence or can they?

@mattbrowne There is every indication that cephalopods are among the most intelligent creatures inhabiting Earth. They “make use of tools”;http://io9.com/5626679/three-arguments-for-the-consciousness-of-cephalopods. They can and do observe and deduce what actions will succeed and fail. I can’t find a video online now, but I watched a film some time back of an oceanographic expedition studying squid. They had netted an animal and put it in a lidded tank in the center of the main deck. They set up a camera to see what would happen next. From time to time, the squid would hold on to the tank walls and use one tentacle to slowly raise the tank lid so it could peer out. If any humans were in sight, it immediately lowered the lid. But as soon as the coast was clear, the squid opened the lid, scurried across the deck, climbed the gunwales and dove back into the sea. Cephalopods also appear to learn from observation of their own and other species. Some also hunt in cooperative groups and communicate to guide the hunt.

@ETpro – I’m not convinced and this has to do with the variety of evolutionary pressure which is significantly stronger on land than in the ocean. Land animals need to adopt much faster to be able to cope with changing environments successfully. Just take the Galapagos islands as an example and compare this with the ocean surrounding these islands. The ocean is pretty much the same in the whole area.

The first life developed in the ocean? Why? Because it’s easier. Surviving on land is much harder. There was more need for developing intelligence. I don’t doubt that there are somewhat intelligent cephalopods. But when you make a general comparison land wins.

@mattbrowne I’d argue that a reef environment has just as much survival pressure as a rain forest.

@uberbatman – Yes, there is survival pressure in the ocean, but it is less varied than on land.

@mattbrowne you make it seem as if each land species inhabits all the different environments instead of just one which is clearly not the case save for a few migratory animals. So I’d still say an animal living on a reef has a lot more survival pressure than one living in say a deciduous forest.

@uberbatman – I’m saying that the huge variety of changing environments and pressures make higher intelligence far more likely on land than in the ocean. I’m not saying that intelligence can’t evolve underwater.

Land species inhabits all the different environments over a longer period of time. The land environments change over time. The “instead of just one” applies only to short periods of time. It’s the same environment only for a relatively short while.

@mattbrowne It is not good science ti toss out observable data when it it fails to fit your bias.

@mattbrowne I must have forgot that ocean environments and chemistry/temp have been the same for all of earths history. Oh… wait a minute…

My answer was already taken above, because squid and octopuses are very intelligent and have an uncanny ability to adapt to their enviroments easily because of their level of intelligence.

@uberbatman I can’t believe you had a mantis shrimp for a pet. They seem very dangerous, and they can bust out of an aqarium and seriously hurt someone, or maybe like kill my cats. Those ‘claws’ and their ability are nasty, but it has to be a kickass world for them to be able to perceive all of those colors. Bye bye ROY G BIV :)

@Paradox25 Honestly I’ve only ever heard of a few cases of a mantis shrimp breaking out of a tank. Like I said the only issue I ever had with mine was when she would dig down and accidentally hit the bottom but I took measures to prevent that from being bad.

Like I said above I had a ‘smasher’ type. There are also ” spearers ” . While less beautiful they’re also ridiculously fast and have , as the name implies, razor sharp spears instead of the clubs.

Here are two more videos I dug up of mine. In the first one you can hear the clicks through the glass each time she strikes the crab which is pretty awesome. Wish I had a better camera back then :P

Nature red in tooth and claw.

@uberbatman I can still hear that clicking in my head from the first video. Can you pick the mantis shrimp up and actually hold it?

@uberbatman; Watching Vladimira moult and watching her abs ripple was terrifying. I wouldn’t want to meet her on a dark night.

@Paradox25 I’ve seen people do it but I’ve seen people do a lot of incredibly stupid things :P

@gailcalled When she was molting was actually her most unprotected time. Post molting she couldn’t eat for a couple weeks because the shell around her clubs didn’t re-calcify enough to even allow for the smashing.

A couple of years ago I read an article about the differences between marine evolution versus land-based evolution. I forgot which magazine it was. My statements above stem from what I memorized. I’m not an expert on this, so I appreciate more accurate views. What surprises me are some of the more emotional responses above, like how could someone dare insult all the smart sea creatures out there. Arrogant humans, damn it. I better rest my case. So let’s wait for Frank Schätzing’s Yrr sea species taking revenge and trying to eliminate the human race, which is devastating the Earth’s oceans.

The novel is a great read, especially for marine life buffs. Almost 900 pages, though. The movie release date is estimated to be 2015.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swarm_(novel)#Plot

@mattbrowne I’ve read that novel, great book indeed, highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t.