Chobotnica, ktorá unikla spod zámku

V roku dvetisícšestnásť prišiel personál malého akvária na Novom Zélande jedno ráno k skutočnej záhade. Jedna z ich chobotníc, na pohľad celkom obyčajný tvor menom Inky, počas noci zmizla z nádrže. Nebolo rozbité žiadne sklo a nezaznel žiadny alarm. Jednoducho bola preč, akoby tam nikdy ani nebola.

In two thousand sixteen, staff at a small aquarium in New Zealand arrived one morning to a genuine mystery. One of their octopuses, an unremarkable looking creature named Inky, had vanished from his tank overnight. No glass had been broken and no alarm had sounded. He had simply gone, as if he had never been there at all.

Prehľadanie budovy nakoniec prinieslo odpoveď. Pod rúškom tmy si Inky vypáčil veko vlastnej nádrže a potom sa telom preplazil po studenej podlahe k úzkej odtokovej rúre vedúcej do oceánu. Vtlačil sa dnu, prepracoval sa niekoľkými metrami tesného kovového potrubia a vykĺzol do otvorenej vody. Do východu slnka bol slobodný.

A search of the building eventually supplied the answer. Under cover of darkness, Inky had prised open the lid of his own tank, then dragged his body across the cold floor to a narrow drainpipe leading to the ocean. He squeezed inside, worked his way through several metres of tight metal piping, and slid out into open water. By sunrise, he was free.

Na tomto príbehu je pozoruhodné nielen to, čo Inky urobil, ale aj to, čo prezrádza o tom, ako chobotnice myslia. Chobotnice patria medzi najinteligentnejšie tvory na svete a majú približne toľko neurónov ako pes. Väčšina týchto neurónov sa nenachádza v hlave, ale v ramenách, takže každé rameno funguje do istej miery samostatne, takmer akoby malo vlastnú myseľ.

What makes the story remarkable is not just what Inky did, but what it reveals about how an octopus thinks. Octopuses rank among the most intelligent creatures alive, with roughly as many neurons as a dog. Most of those neurons sit not in the head but along the arms, so each arm operates with a degree of independence, almost as though it had a mind of its own.

Táto inteligencia sa opakovane prejavuje v laboratóriách po celom svete. Chobotnice sa naučili odskrutkovať veko pohára, aby sa dostali k jedlu, vyriešili viacstupňové hádanky, aby vytiahli kúsok kraba zo zamknutej škatule, a dokonca rozpoznali jednotlivých výskumníkov podľa vzhľadu, pričom na tých, ktorých akoby nemali rady, striekali vodu.

This intelligence turns up again and again in laboratories worldwide. Octopuses have learned to unscrew jar lids to reach food, solved multi step puzzles to retrieve a piece of crab from a locked box, and even recognised individual researchers by sight, squirting water at the ones they seemed to dislike.

Napriek tomu vedci stále nedokážu úplne vysvetliť, ako táto inteligencia vznikla. Vyvinula sa na úplne inej vetve života, dávno predtým, než existovali cicavce, a preto sa stretnutie s mysľou chobotnice najviac na Zemi podobá stretnutiu s mysľou mimozemšťana.

Even so, scientists still cannot fully explain how such intelligence arose. It evolved along an entirely separate branch of life, long before mammals existed, which is why meeting an octopus's mind feels like the closest thing on Earth to meeting an alien one.

Samotného Inkyho už nikdy nikto nevidel. Akvárium ho napokon nahradilo inou chobotnicou, tentoraz si však dali záležať, aby z novej nádrže bolo oveľa ťažšie utiecť.

Inky himself was never seen again. The aquarium eventually replaced him with another octopus, though this time they made sure the new tank would be considerably harder to escape from.