ok so fun facts about octopuses: even though theyre very intelligent, they haven’t been able to pass their knowledge on from one generation to the next since the mother dies while caring for her young before its hatched, and then the offspring live a solitary life.
also, when they come together to mate they tend to be about as eager to have sex as they are to eat one another… so its a bit tricky.
but recently biologists are finding that environmental issues such as changing food supplies may be forcing octopuses to work together more and form some very loose kind of social networks, which is pretty cool cause they can finally share knowledge with one another instead of just swapping sperm and tasty flesh.
one up-ing them all though is a species of octopus in nicaragua discovered a couple years ago that, A. doesnt die when they reproduce, B. dont seem to have that whole cannibal urge so thats nice, and C. form huge social groups of up to 40 octopuses.
so if one octopus can learn to dodge security guards and steal fish, imagine what 40 working (maybe not exactly together but) in close proximity could learn to do….
TL;DR: the octopocalypse is nigh