Those of us who have pets or work with animals, know they have feelings and get attached to people. Obviously that goes for octopus also. The emotional intelligence of an octopus has been affirmed by researchers and their investigations. “They are probably the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien,” said Peter Godfrey-Smith in his piece “The Mind of an Octopus” which was published in Scientific American Mind.
As indicated by Godfrey-Smith, an octopus can differentiate human faces one from the other even when the people are wearing the same clothes. Their other human characteristics including playing with things, having long and short-term memory and being truly intelligent when it comes to escaping.
One family discover exactly how human-like the animals are after saving an octopus that was stranded on a shoreline. They imagined that would be the last time they will ever saw that octopus yet the following day they discovered this wasn’t the situation.
“He required a few minutes to recuperate, at that point he swam away. The next day we went to the same shoreline for a walk,” the caption says. “While walking along the shoreline we saw a shadow in the water coming rapidly to us. It was our octopus we saved yesterday! He remembered us!”
Not only did the octopus remember them but it also showed an affection and appreciation for the family and for their efforts to save him. “He went with us quite a while along the shoreline, all the time it attempted to touch our feet,”. “We are certain that this Octopus returned to thank us for saving his life. It’s amazing how smart creatures are.”
One thing this family chose after their experience with the octopus, who they named Kurt, is that they will never eat octopus again. Watch their experience with Kurt in the video below!
