It turns out that octopuses are surprisingly intelligent creatures. In fact, they’re so intelligent that humans aren’t even capable of figuring out how they got that way.

Now, they aren’t going to best you on an IQ test (not that those tests prove much anyway, although you should be embarrassed if an octopus outscores you) but their cognitive skills are far beyond what they need to be to simply survive as a species.

Octopuses are cephalopods (which are all mollusks) – marine animals with bilateral body symmetry, prominent heads, and arms or tentacles.

They can use tools; they collect things they might need in the future (in other words, they make PLANS!); they are capable of coming up with novel solutions to problems – all things that require relatively large brains (although most of their neurons are in their arms). And when creatures are more complex than just eating and reproducing, we feel like we need to figure them out (before they overthrow us or win an election or something).

Anytime an octopus does something that seems fairly crafty, humans like to bring up this evolutionary mystery that we have yet to solve.

This all helps explain why a 2-minute-and-19-second video of a man releasing an octopus back into the water has been viewed over 12.5 million times since it was posted in 2013.

YouTuber Pei Yan Heng, captioned the video of the moment as follows:

“Released a stranded octopus that got stuck on the sand when the tide went out in the shallow water. After recovering, the octopus moved towards my left booties and placed one of its tentacles on my booties for some time before moving off.”

Why is that such a big deal? Well, because the beach-goer visiting Cyrene Reef in 2013 assumed that the octopus was “thanking him” for the rescue. Of course, once that was suggested to people, it was easier to read the creature’s movements that way. We can’t possibly know what its intentions were.

Gratitude is an emotion defined by humans, so there’s no reason another creature should be able to express it. Then again, we personify our pets all the time, so it’s not such a big leap to do it to the intelligent octopus?

After getting stuck in the sand, it appears the rescuer scooped up the little octopus with a plastic container, then released him back into water that was a few inches deep – enough room for it to move without getting stuck again.

It takes a moment for the octopus to reacclimate as we wait to see what happens. It just sort of sits there “pulsating” and it’s easy to feel bad for the recovery it seems to be going through.

Once it recovered, it moved over towards the human (instead of getting the heck out of there as you might expect) and slowly and splayed out a thin tentacle onto his boot in a seemingly deliberate manner.

That doesn’t seem like much – and we’d like to be deeply skeptical – but it’s hard to watch the moment and not find some beauty in it. We’ve certainly seen other animals appear to stop and “thank” their rescuers after going back into the wild.

The octopus keeps its arm there for a good 20 seconds, kind of like when someone gives you a really long hug and you just kind of wonder when it’s going to be over.

And even the most skeptical viewers still wanted to personify the creature in some way.

One commenter provided his own commentary on the video:

“Human: “Oh my god, he’s thanking me! Nature is so beautiful!” Octopus: “Ha-HA! You fell for my cunning trap! Now come, human: it is a long trek home and I’ll need sustenance along the way and you will serve nicely! >:) … tries to ensnare foot … hmm, heavier than I thought … Very well. I shall spare your life. Farewell, knave!”

(Someone may have seen one too many Kraken movies.)

But another thought the rescuer’s interpretation was legit and knew of at least one other instance in which an octopus had “thanked” a person in the same way:

“Yes it did thank you. I know of another person who had the same experience. She worked at the Monterey Bay aquarium and was releasing an octopus in the bay that they had held captive for several years. As she released it, it came over to her and put one tentacle on her arm and looked straight at her for a long moment before swimming off.”

One thing we do know? Octopuses are much cooler than we could have ever imagined.

That’s one reason that Sy Montgomery’s 2016 book The Soul of an Octopus was a Finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction, a New York Times Bestseller, and An American Library Association Notable Book of the Year. Give it a read if you find this all fascinating!

And be sure to watch the video below and see what you think after a bit of your own octopus observation!

Please SHARE this with your friends and family.

Source: Pei Yan Heng via YouTube, The New York Times