Pweza aliyejiachia kutoka kwenye kufuli

Mwaka wa elfu mbili na kumi na sita, wafanyakazi wa akwaramu ndogo huko New Zealand walifika asubuhi moja kukuta fumbo la kweli. Mmoja wa pweza wao, kiumbe chenye mwonekano wa kawaida aliyeitwa Inky, alikuwa ametoweka kutoka kwenye bwawa lake usiku huo. Hakuna kioo kilichovunjika wala kengele iliyolia. Alikuwa ameondoka tu, kana kwamba hakuwahi kuwepo hapo kabisa.

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.

Upelelezi wa jengo hilo hatimaye ulitoa jibu. Akijificha gizani, Inky alikuwa amefungua kifuniko cha bwawa lake mwenyewe, kisha akajikokota mwilini mwake juu ya sakafu baridi hadi kwenye bomba jembamba la maji taka lililoelekea baharini. Alijibana ndani yake, akajipenyeza kupitia mita kadhaa za bomba la chuma lililobana, kisha akatoka na kuingia kwenye maji ya wazi. Kufikia macheo, alikuwa huru.

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.

Kinachofanya hadithi hii kuwa ya ajabu si tu kile Inky alichofanya, bali kile kinachofunua kuhusu jinsi pweza anavyofikiri. Pweza wako miongoni mwa viumbe wenye akili zaidi duniani, wakiwa na niuroni nyingi karibu sawa na za mbwa. Niuroni nyingi za hao hazikai kichwani bali kwenye mikono yake, hivyo kila mkono unafanya kazi kwa kiwango fulani cha uhuru, karibu kana kwamba una akili yake yenyewe.

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.

Akili hii inajitokeza mara kwa mara katika maabara duniani kote. Pweza wamejifunza kufungua vifuniko vya mitungi kufikia chakula, wamesuluhisha mafumbo ya hatua nyingi ili kupata kipande cha kaa kutoka kwenye sanduku lililofungwa, na hata wamewatambua watafiti mmoja mmoja kwa macho, wakiwarushia maji wale waliowaonekana kuwachukia.

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.

Hata hivyo, wanasayansi bado hawawezi kueleza kikamilifu jinsi akili kama hiyo ilivyoibuka. Ilikua katika tawi tofauti kabisa la uhai, muda mrefu kabla ya mamalia kuwepo, ndiyo maana kukutana na akili ya pweza kunahisi kama jambo la karibu zaidi duniani na kukutana na akili ya kigeni.

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.

Inky mwenyewe hakuwahi kuonekana tena. Hatimaye akwaramu hiyo ilimbadilisha na pweza mwingine, ingawa wakati huu walihakikisha bwawa jipya lingekuwa gumu zaidi kutoroka.

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.