Truman simply slithered out again, the aquarium said. Then, there’s Otto, a six month old octopus at Sea Star Aquarium in Coburg, Germany, who shorted out the aquarium’s entire electrical system by squirting water at a spotlight overhead. At two feet, seven inches, Otto discovered he was big enough to swing onto the edge of his tank and shoot out the 2,000 watt spotlight above him with a carefully directed jet of water. Staff at the aquarium believe Otto was annoyed by the bright A series by “The Undergravel Reporter” light shining into his aquarium, and discovered he could extinguish it by climbing onto the rim of his In spite of popular demand to the tank and squirting a jet of water in its direction. contrary, this humor and information And then there is the female two-spotted column continues. As usual, it does octopus at the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium in NOT necessarily represent the California. She apparently tugged on a valve that opinions of the Editor, or of the allowed hundreds of gallons of water to overflow Greater City Aquarium Society. its tank. While no sealife was harmed by the ruman, a 7-foot-long, 30-pound octopus at the flood, the brand new (and ecologically designed) New England Aquarium, managed to squeeze floors might have sustained some damage. As you can see, the octopus is a very his body into a 14-inch square acrylic box in dexterous creature. Because it’s made of muscular search of food. The 30-minute performance drew a hydrostat (the same type of muscle as the human crowd of staff and guests. Caretakers at the tongue) the tentacles of aquarium place food an octopus can bend in inside locked boxes as an any direction. When an enrichment activity. The octopus reaches for idea is that the animals, something, its tentacle who are very intelligent, thins and elongates as it must figure out how to stretches toward the unlatch the boxes and get object of its desire, the food. Recently, enabling it to access biologist Bill Murphy crevices. Once it reaches placed some crabs inside a its destination, the 6-inch-square acrylic cube octopus can then grasp an and latched it, then placed object by wrapping the that cube inside a 14-inch end of its tentacle around cube with a different latch. The cubes were then Photo courtesy of the New England Aquarium it. So, if these abilities could be translated into a placed inside Truman’s robot, then that robot could provide nearly endless tank. capability for exploring hard to reach places in the The idea was for Truman to release the latch ocean, or at least that is the thinking of Cecilia on the larger box, then release the latch of the smaller one to get his food. The staff did not expect Laschi, professor of industrial bioengineering at Truman to get to work until after the aquarium the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa, Italy. closed and it was dark, because octopi typically prey Laschi’s project, officially titled “Octopus,” was on other animals at night. But Truman was proposed and approved by European impatient (or very hungry). He got to work right Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme away. Rather than undoing the latch on the larger (FP7), the EU’s main funding organization for box, he squeezed his legs and large head through a research initiatives in technology.
Tails of the
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two-inch hole in the larger box. Once inside, he worked for 30 minutes to try to unlatch the smaller box. When he couldn’t get the smaller box open, References
http://www.wmur.com/family/18868489/detail.html http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/64662.html http://my.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20090226/49a62fe0_3ca6_1552620090226-246635279 http://news.cnet.com/8301-17912_3-10204095-72.html
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Modern Aquarium - Greater City A.S. (NY)
April April2009 2009
17 (NY) Modern Aquarium - Greater City A.S