I’ve just finished reading another book about octopus (yet to be shared here), and the author talks at length about an octopus “city” off the coast of Australia, discovered in 2009 and dubbed Octopolis. Another, similar location, named Octlantis, has since been found, and scientists have recently published their research on these unusual places. Octopus are not social creatures – at least, they were not thought to be until these two locations, where up to 16 octopus live in close quarters and exhibit complex social behaviours, were discovered.
Team leader, marine biologist Professor David Scheel, believes that…
… octopus behavior probably hasn’t changed in [the last decade]. Rather, humans’ ability to observe the behavior has. Today more divers are in the water with cameras and better technology to quickly communicate findings amongst divers and scientists.
Once again, the potential for citizen scientists to make discoveries of this nature is highlighted.
Read about the discoveries here. This article, from Citylab, has a map of the most recently discovered octopus aggregation site.
