LOOKING AT PLAY IN OCTOPUS VULGARIS

Prior to the demonstration of play behavior in turtles and birds it was thought to be limited to mammals. To more effectively understand the context facilitating playful behavior and its subsequent evolution as a prominent, perhaps even critical, trait in animal life it is necessary to investigate it in different phyla. Aristoteles and Plinius were the first to describe a behavior that could be called exploration in octopuses. Octopuses' talents for manipulating objects have been studied in various learning experiments over the last several decades. However, it was not until 1999 that Mather and Anderson demonstrated object play in cephalopods. The main purpose of this study was to set up definitions to characterize exploration and play behaviors in octopuses. We tested seven Octopus vulgaris in their reactions to two different objects. Each object was given to the octopuses for one hour a day for eight days in a row. Octopuses showed individual variation in their interaction with these objects ranging from ignoring them or making infrequent contacts with them to possessive behavior and playful interactions.