Ridiculously Intelligent Animal: The Octopus.

Octopuses no longer need to prove they’re intelligent!

The octopus is an amazing animal. Already visually, with his eight arms and his blue blood. A funny inhabitant of the seas. Funny… and smart. Because the octopus is one of those animals in which researchers have discovered a very unusual intelligence over time.

Scientists have been scrutinizing the octopus from all sides for years. Hoping to finally understand how she got there. There is no doubt that its approximately 500 million neurons helped. 500 million is as much as a dog. Excuse me a little! But maybe the 33,000 genes that researchers have identified for at least one of the 700 species of squid on the planet have something to do with it too. Or at least some of them. Gene is not quite like the others. What scientists call jumping genes. Or, more technically speaking, transposable elements. Because we are talking about DNA fragments that not only copy themselves, but can also move from one place to another on the octopus chromosomes.

You should know that more than 45% of our genome is made up of such jumping genes. Most of them remain silent. Some because mutations have inactivated them. Others because they are blocked by cellular defense mechanisms. However, they remain useful for evolution.

This is possibly a fascinating example of convergent evolution. The kind of phenomenon in which two genetically very different species develop, independently of each other, the same molecular process in response to their needs.

Another cause for excitement is the fact that the identification of this Line jumper gene in the octopus brain propels it to the number one candidate of the elements to be studied to improve the knowledge we have on the evolution of intelligence.. With the possibility of understanding a little more why the octopus really isn’t that stupid!

Ridiculously Intelligent Animal: The Octopus.

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