@rogward course octopuses are older than dinosaurs. who do you think created them?

@rogward
I have a strong suspicion that octopus are the cleverest and most advanced animals on this planet. We just don't understand them.

@rogward Maybe that's why they're so smart. Probably smarter than us because they've been around a lot longer I think 🤔

@rogward whats fascinating is that octopi are also intelligent problem solvers but 300 million years of evolution have not seemed to advance them beyond where they have been cognitively. Why have humans built a modern technological advanced civilization in a few thousand years and octopi are still living in tide pools after more than 100 million years of evolution?

@rogward this adds a whole different layer of unease for those of us deep into Lovecraftian fiction…

@rogward They found one even older: 330 million years old!

It’s amazing that we have fossils at all of these soft-bodied creatures!

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/mar/08/octopuses-were-around-before-dinosaurs-fossil-find-suggests

@rogward
Are we sure that's not a fossil of one of Trump's early hair pieces?

@rogward Current favourite dinosaur tweet:

@rogward That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die

@rogward that is cool as hell.

@rogward not if we keep pillaging and polluting the oceans, they won't.

@rogward humanity: And I took that as a challenge

@rogward And Squidward Tentacles here will find this article quite fascinating.

@rogward

and yet, still younger than Mitch McConnell

@rogward
Beautiful

@rogward octopi are amazing creatures and more intelligent than most politicians

@rogward so they’d make poor index fossils but their longevity isn’t too surprising considering the long record of cephalopods in the fossil record in general

@rogward I sure hope so. Octopuses (Octopi) are intelligent, can edit their genes on the fly, and don't live long enough to do real damage to their environment.

@rogward octopus outlasting humans is basically the plot of Splatoon

@rogward@mastodon.social

Which means the comet did not wipe out the octopus.

@rogward

but on the bright side, when humanity is extinct, we won't have to listen to that one octopus in the pub who's always droning on about how much better it was in the days when dinosaurs roamed...

@rogward
I love these creatures and they never stop being fascinating. Also, for all those interested here, I again want to highly recommend Peter Godfrey-Smith's great book Other Minds, which looks at octopuses from the angle of evolution of intelligence and discusses them as a potential third evolution path of intelligence not yet taken into account.

#book #octopus #intelligence #otherminds

@rogward They will outlive humanity like in the "Love, Death & Robots" 01/17, "Alternate Histories". 😀

@rogward

I eat less seafood, in particular I no longer eat octopus.
They are too valuable and too intelligent.

@rogward
I think the mollusc expert at Cardiff museum told me fossilisation of their tentacles was Very Rare.
I think he said no ammonite fossil with its tentacles preserved had ever been found.

@rogward Of course they have. They are actually wonderful creatures. Amazingly intelligent and they have nearly magical abilities.

@rogward Well they are my favorite alien... 🖖

@rogward Homo so-called sapiens is unlikely to be around as long as the dinosaurs, never mind the octopus. The level of private greed & imbecilic stupidly is off the scale. Was there ever another species with billionaires?

@rogward include links please. https://deshinewspost.com/see-the-best-fossil-octopus-ever-found/ (which itself is copy of https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/see-the-best-fossil-octopus-ever-found/) And, pictured fossil is 165 million years, not 296. Though there does seem to have been a 500 million year ancestor identified: https://www.livescience.com/ancient-octopus-relative-fossil.html

@rogward If they lived longer than 3 years god only knows what kind of complex technological society they'd have come up with by now. Human 3 year olds are kinda useless when compared to octopi.

@rogward Just think, that's about 150,000,000 - or more - generations of octopuses.

We humans have only had about 15,000 generations since 'early modern humans' evolved.

Maybe we should learn a bit more from them - if they'd teach us - rather than dismissing or 😔 eating them!

@rogward they’ll be here long after us too…better-built for flooding