31/07/2025
FROM ARE AWESOME
A Giant Octopus Civilization May Have Emerged Under the Sea — and It’s Not What Scientists Expected
For years, scientists assumed octopuses were the introverts of the ocean — brilliant, yes, but solitary and short-lived. That view shattered when researchers returned to a patch of seafloor off Australia's coast and found something astonishing: a dense, structured octopus society, complete with what looks like shared homes, territorial behavior, and even rudimentary communication.
Nicknamed Octopolis and Octlantis, these underwater settlements were first spotted over a decade ago. But new AI-powered submersibles and deep-sea cameras have captured behavior far beyond what anyone predicted. Dozens of octopuses gather in clustered stone dens, arrange shells into walls, and flash intricate skin-color signals to one another in what may be courtship rituals or conflict warnings.
Even more bizarre, these octopuses seem to be using human trash and natural shells as building materials — creating barricades, decorating entrances, and forming what some researchers hesitate (but barely) to call architecture.
They’ve been filmed stealing from neighbors, joining forces against predators, and displaying repeated behavior that could indicate learning, memory, and possibly even culture — a word rarely used for marine invertebrates. Some scientists now wonder if octopuses are the first known case of an intelligent species independently forming complex social structures without bones, language, or long lifespans.
What’s causing this strange emergence? Some suspect our environmental changes — warmer oceans, more debris — have forced octopuses into tighter quarters, sparking rapid adaptation. If true, we may be watching the earliest stages of civilization — not built by primates, but by cephalopods.
And they’re doing it on their own terms, eight arms at a time.
