Octopuses would rather go hungry in the morning to have more delicious food at night, some children can't do it.
Cephalopods have always been a research target for scientists.
Many people may not be familiar with cephalopods, but once you mention their members, you'll suddenly understand—octopus and squid are the most famous representatives of cephalopods.
Although cephalopods belong to marine soft-bodied animals, they are considered the symbol of invertebrate wisdom, especially recent research findings may surprise you.
Research shows that octopuses can pass the marshmallow test just like human children.
The marshmallow test is an experiment done in the 1960s targeting children, in which children are placed in a room with marshmallows and told that if they can wait 15 minutes without eating the marshmallow, they will receive a second, better marshmallow. The experiment demonstrates human cognitive abilities.
Delaying gratification is a common occurrence in daily life.
When facing delicious food, many people regret: if I had known there would be so much good food at night, I shouldn't have eaten lunch, and I could eat more by starving until dinner.
The intelligent crow also passed this test. Now, a study found that octopuses have the same ability.In order to get better food, it is willing to endure hunger and delay eating.
The experiment used 29 'ordinary octopuses' as subjects. The octopus's name was also 'ordinary octopus'.
First, the octopuses were kept in a tank and fed continuously for 5 days, while also fed crabs and shrimp. It was found that all the octopuses liked to eat shrimp.
Then the octopuses were divided into two groups, one group ate crabs in the morning and shrimp in the evening, and it was unchanged; the other group, ate crabs in the morning, and shrimp was randomly available.
The first group quickly adapted, it seemed that the most delicious food, shrimp, would definitely come every night in the evening, and during the period, the crabs they ate became less and less, and they became more and more obsessed with shrimp.
As for the second group, shrimp was randomly provided, did not expect, so the octopus ate the same amount of crabs every day or not.
Overall, there was a significant difference in the crab consumption between the two groups.
Finally, the dietary treatments of the two groups were exchanged.
The same thing happened: the group that had shrimp every night adapted, and the crabs they ate decreased; the group with randomly available shrimp ate more crabs than before.
Conclusion
Researchers believe that octopuses, in order to have a big feast of shrimp at night, they are willing to delay eating crabs and endure hunger, this means that octopuses not only can remember the feeding schedule, but also include this schedule in the future plan, and then self-control to maximize the enjoyment of their favorite food.
This is a very complex behavior. Besides humans, some primates, dogs, and crows also have this ability.
However, this ability appears in cephalopods, which is surprising.
Because among the animals that have passed the test, only octopuses are invertebrates, and the evolutionary path of octopuses on this planet is almost different from that of other creatures, sometimes their surprising intelligence makes many people suspect that octopuses may come from another planet.
Everything is possible, scientists are still studying this magical creature.
