re: Octopus Mating

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They seem almost alien.

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They may be a type of intelligent life we can expect to find on alien worlds, especially water worlds. Theirs is a unique variation of evolution’s seeming inevitable progression to big-brained creatures.

Their are lots of examples of big-brained and intelligent vertebrates. Primates, dogs and wolves, dolphins and elephants are intelligent mammals. Some birds, though not necessarily big-brained, are exceedingly intelligent, too.

Octopi are the only big-brained invertebrates. They are an example of convergent evolution of the brain. Our common ancestor with them goes almost back to LUCA, the last universal common ancestor of everything.

They show us that big brains don’t have to be centrally located. They also illustrate to us that large brains can be an evolutionary expression for many different types of species.

We shouldn’t expect our first contact with an alien species to be with something that looks similar to us. It may more closely resemble an octopus.