The Cellar Image of the Day

Happy Friday. This is Frieda, a 9-month-old octopus. She lives at a zoo in Munich. She's learned how to open a jar containing her favorite foods, which include shrimp, crabs, and clams. The jar opening is now on display for visitors, twice a week.

Freaky man!

Man ... this could be trouble!

First the invertibrates learn to open jars, next thing you'll know they'll be wanting the keys to the car, and universal suffrage ...

Pray that clams never learn to do something clever ...

(bet you all thought i was only paranoid about people ...)

Quite the cocky capsnafler, eh? Goin' into showbiz...
Need a challenge? Ive got a 23 month-old, sloppy, crusty jar of Stubb's BBq sauce in the fridge.

At last! Help for the elderly and disabled. They may replace dogs and little monkeys domestic helpers.

We have to teach them to breathe air first. I don't think they could get the proper leverage to open the jars if they also had to hold the jar out of the water.

Unless we only want them to open jars that are already full of saltwater ... you know, pickles, olives ... I think that would work.

How big an octopus do we need as a kitchen appliance? I think I can squeeze a small aquarium into my kitchen design.

That might be a good idea anyway griff ... have a big tank in the kitchen where yah can yank out some fresh, tasty seafood and toss it right into a big ol' pot of boiling water and old bay seasoning.

You'd have to have some way to mark the trained jar opening octopus to tell it from the one that you bought for calimari, though.

You wouldn't be able to open the tomato sauce if you cooked the wrong one.

Octopi are as smart as cats, minus the attitude. They have eyes that are almost on par with ours, and they've been opening jars as far back as 1975. Saw it on a Jaques Cousteau special that came out before a lot of the cellar audience was born. Yiieee!

I had heard a story about an octopus in a lab or zoo or someplace indoors in a tank. The lab techs or whatever would come in every morning and find rocks from the tank strewn all over the room. They weren't sure why or what happened as the rocks would repeatedly be flung on the floor, even after being replaced in the tank, so they set up a camcorder overnight. According to the tale, the camcorder caught the octopus flinging rocks at cockroaches on the ceiling and walls to knock them in the tank where it would catch them and eat them.

Snopes had nothing on the story, but I'm still unsure of it's authenticity.

ACTUALLY, THE OCTOPUS INVENTED THE SCREW TOP CAP. WE BORROWED THE INVENTION IN EGYPTIAN TIMES AND HAVE USED IT WITH GREAT SUCCESS EVER SINCE!

Oh Boy, another wacko. Welcome to the Cellar Ljim. We've almost got them outnumbered.

PS- Dave gets annoyed if you yell.

Well, let's see this one get out, if he's so darn smart!

(Great album by a great prog rock band, BTW)

here it is. took me a while to find this.

this is why i'm here.

mmmwooowhoooohoooohooooo!

Just about an hour ago I was sitting at my kitchen table talking with a friend about a giant octopus she had seen at an aquarium in ... Seattle, maybe. I think they are stalking me.

Guess I can't hide in a jar, though - perhaps a bottle. Yes, much better!

Octopus mimics predators -- to ward off its predators.

not only color shifting but shape shifting, too

Quote:

Biologist Calls Food Locked Away 'Enrichment Activity'

Posted: 6:16 am EST March 6, 2009
BOSTON -- An octopus at the New England Aquarium surprised staff and visitors Thursday by squeezing its 7-foot-long, 30-pound body into a 14-inch square acrylic box.

The octopus, named Truman, squeezed into the box in pursuit of food. Biologist Bill Murphy told TV station WMUR that he had placed a couple of crabs inside a 6-inch square cube and locked it, and then placed that cube inside the 14-inch box with a different latch. The feeding method is a puzzle designed to entertain and enrich octopi, which exhibit an interest in such puzzles.

"I start the octopus off with the small box, and once he has mastered that lock, I switch to another box, and once he has mastered each individual box, I put a box inside a box to keep him active and challenged," Murphy said.

Murphy said Truman usually leaves the boxes alone until the aquarium closes because octopi are typically nocturnal. Truman normally opens each lock individually, but this time, he was apparently too impatient.

[Word quickly spread among Aquarium staff and guests as a crowd gathered for the thirty minute spectacle.]
New England Aquarium
Word quickly spread among Aquarium staff and guests as a crowd gathered for the thirty minute spectacle.
Murphy said the octopus squeezed his legs and large head through a 2-inch hole in the exterior box. The only hard part on an octopus is its small beak, so it can squeeze into tight spaces.

A crowd gathered around the tank to watch as word spread of Truman's feat.

Once inside the 14-inch box, Truman tried to undo the latch on the smaller box. But he wasn't able to manage it after 30 minutes and eventually emerged, leg by leg, from the box.

Officials said this was the first time such behavior had been witnessed and photographed at the aquarium.

heh heh, thanks dar. I saw that story last night, but was too tired to look for this thread.

That's because you've lived several, what most people would consider full lives, since then.

12 years is a long time.

I was doing a training just a moment ago, and my boss introduced me and said I had been here for 25 years. It's true, I started as a temp here 25 years ago. I've been an employee for 'only' 24.5 years. But I've done work here for 25 years. Makes me feel freaking old. I've got a meeting scheduled Wednesday with a retirement planner the HR department is bringing in. That makes me feel even older. I've been just vaguely thinking of retirement as this thing that will happen in the distant future, and I don't need to think of it at all, but it's coming sooner than I think.