Toples

Pada pagi kedua, Chiara membawa sebuah toples kaca ke akuarium Pasta. Toples itu memiliki tutup ulir. Di dalam toples terdapat seekor kepiting hidup.

On the second morning, Chiara brought a glass jar to Pasta's tank. The jar had a screw lid. Inside the jar was a single live crab.

Chiara menahan toples di atas air sejenak. Pasta memperhatikan. Gurita itu telah duduk di sudut yang sama selama empat puluh menit. Kini matanya menajam. Satu lengannya terurai dari gulungan dan merentang di sepanjang sisi akuarium.

Chiara held the jar above the water for a moment. Pasta watched. The octopus had been sitting in the same corner for forty minutes. Now her eye sharpened. One arm uncurled from the coil and stretched along the side of the tank.

Chiara menjatuhkan toples ke dalam air. Toples itu tenggelam perlahan. Pasta tidak menerjang. Gurita, seperti yang Chiara katakan kepada Polly, umumnya bukanlah makhluk yang menerjang. Mereka lebih dulu menjadi pengamat.

Chiara dropped the jar into the water. It sank slowly. Pasta did not lunge. Octopuses, Chiara had told Polly, are not generally lungers. They are observers first.

Polly bertengger di tepi akuarium dengan kacamatanya miring ke arah air. Dia bisa melihat kepiting di dalam toples, merayap melawan kaca. Pasta mengulurkan satu lengannya dan menyentuh toples itu. Kulitnya dipenuhi pengisap hingga ke ujung lengan tersebut. Masing-masing pengisap mungkin memiliki dua ratus sel sensorik. "Lebih banyak dari lidahmu," Chiara berkata pelan. "Lengan gurita merasakan segala yang disentuhnya."

Polly perched on the tank rim with her glasses tilted at the water. She could see the crab inside the jar, scuttling against the glass. Pasta moved one arm out and touched the jar. Her skin was suckered all the way to the tip of that arm. The suckers had perhaps two hundred sensory cells each. "More than your tongue," Chiara said quietly. "An octopus arm tastes everything it touches."

Pasta mengumpulkan toples dengan lengan kedua. Kedua lengan itu memutar toples, perlahan. Polly bisa melihat lengan ketiga mendekati bagian belakang toples, menjelajahi tutupnya.

Pasta gathered the jar with a second arm. The two arms turned it, slowly. Polly could see the third arm coming around the back of the jar now, exploring the lid.

Ini adalah perilaku yang sudah banyak didokumentasikan. Gurita telah membuka toples berulir di laboratorium penelitian sejak tahun 1950-an. Beberapa bisa melakukannya dalam waktu kurang dari satu menit. Pertama kali seekor gurita baru menemukan toples, biasanya dibutuhkan sepuluh atau lima belas menit eksplorasi. Mereka tidak menyelesaikan masalah seperti manusia. Mereka tidak berpikir dalam langkah-langkah. Mereka membiarkan pengisap merasakan ulir dan kemudian memutar tutup sesuai arah ulir tersebut.

This is a well-documented behaviour. Octopuses have been opening screw-top jars in research labs since the 1950s. Some can do it in less than a minute. The first time a new octopus encounters a jar, it usually takes ten or fifteen minutes of exploration. They are not solving the problem the way a human would. They are not thinking in steps. They are letting the suckers feel the threads and then turning the lid the way the threads pull.

Pasta memutar tutup satu setengah putaran. Lalu satu lagi. Tutupnya terlepas. Kepiting di dalam, merasakan perubahan tekanan air, bergegas keluar dari toples dan masuk ke air terbuka.

Pasta turned the lid one half-rotation. Then another. The lid popped free. The crab inside, sensing the change in water pressure, scrambled out of the jar and into the open water.

Ia tidak pergi jauh. Lengan keempat Pasta sudah melingkar di mulut toples. Kepiting itu lenyap ke dalam pembukaan putih lembut yang Polly sadari, setelah beberapa saat, adalah paruh gurita. Kepiting itu mengeluarkan bunyi klik kecil. Lalu tidak ada apa-apa.

It did not get far. Pasta's fourth arm was already curled at the jar's mouth. The crab vanished into a soft white opening that Polly realised, after a moment, was the octopus's beak. The crab made a small click. Then nothing.

Toples itu tenggelam kosong ke dasar akuarium.

The jar sank empty to the bottom of the tank.

Chiara menulis sesuatu di papan klip. "Tiga menit empat puluh dua detik," katanya. "Dia semakin cepat. Pertama kali kami memberinya toples, dia butuh sebelas menit."

Chiara wrote something on a clipboard. "Three minutes forty-two seconds," she said. "She is getting fast. The first time we gave her a jar, it took her eleven minutes."

Polly memiringkan kepalanya yang merah ke arah Pasta. Gurita itu sudah kembali ke gulungan pipa. Lengannya melilit dirinya sendiri. Matanya, untuk satu momen panjang, bertemu dengan Polly. Lalu perlahan menutup.

Polly tilted her red head at Pasta. The octopus was already returning to the coil of pipe. Her arms wrapped themselves around herself. Her eye, for one long moment, met Polly's. Then it closed slowly.

Sulit untuk melebih-lebihkan betapa anehnya seekor gurita, kata Chiara, sambil mengumpulkan barang-barangnya. Mereka adalah moluska. Mereka lebih dekat hubungannya dengan siput daripada dengan makhluk yang memiliki tulang belakang. Mereka memiliki tiga jantung. Darah mereka berwarna biru, karena membawa oksigen menggunakan tembaga alih-alih besi. Mereka hidup, di alam liar, hanya sekitar tiga hingga lima tahun. Pasta sudah berusia dua tahun. Dia mungkin hanya memiliki dua tahun kehidupan tersisa, tidak peduli seberapa mahir dia dengan toples.

It is hard to overstate how strange an octopus is, Chiara said, gathering her things. They are mollusks. They are more closely related to a snail than to anything with a backbone. They have three hearts. Their blood is blue, because it carries oxygen using copper instead of iron. They live, in the wild, only about three to five years. Pasta was already two. She had perhaps two years of life left, no matter how good she got at the jar.

Dalam waktu itu, Chiara berkata, dia akan mempelajari segala yang akan pernah dia ketahui.

In that time, Chiara had said, she would learn everything she would ever know.