Octopi are known to be clever, allegedly guessing the winning football championship team and making infamous escapes from the lab. But is their ability to rapidly camouflage a sign of deeper intelligence? To find out, we went behind the scenes this month with Dr. Roger Hanlon, an MBL biologist and leading expert in cephalopod behavior, for the BBC Natural History unit.
We have made previous videos with Roger, but for this show, he pulled out all the stops. Roger showed us some of his amazing field data, i.e. mind-blowing videos that show octopi and cuttlefish morphing into a piece of kelp or mimicking a rock. Roger’s awesome assistant Kendra set up a lab experiment in which cuttlefish blended into different backdrops. And to top it all off, Roger jumped on his paddleboard for a tour around Eel Pond — after all, he has been known to commute to work by paddle.
This segment will appear in a BBC Two show called Animal Einsteins, hosted by Chris Packham. If it’s anything like previous shows, viewers are guaranteed to be shocked and awed by the amazing diversity and superpowers on display in the animal kingdom. Can we call these adaptations a sign of intelligence? Possibly. But you’ll certainly be smarter for watching it! (The series started its UK broadcast in February 2021; we’ll post a link to view in other regions when possible.)
A side note: we’ve worked with our share of out-of-town producers in the past, but the pandemic has made this capacity even more critical. People can’t travel between countries these days, and even if they could, it wouldn’t be a good idea. By hiring us, producers can safely achieve high-quality results, without the hassle and expensive of traveling. It’s the a silver lining of working in the time of coronavirus, one that we think will outlast the pandemic!
