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Octopus foraging strategy and benefits a, An octopus web-over, a distinctive behavioural motif characterized by a whitening and conspicuous expansion of the interbrachial web skin over a specific habitat feature expressed when capturing prey within coral and rock crevices. b, Octopuses perform longer web-overs over structures with food than over empty ones, based on data from a field experiment. ****Significance level of P < 0.001 (Supplementary Table 44). c, Variations in octopus foraging strategy, that is, web-over duration (Supplementary Table 45) and frequency (Supplementary Table 46), across the factorial possibilities of presence of extreme phenotypes (including hunting alone) based on the duration (success) and frequency (investment) of web-overs (Supplementary Tables 45 and 46). Pearson’s R and P value are given in the figure. For box plots, boxes represent the 25% and 75% quartiles, with the centre (50%) being the median and the red dots indicating the mean. Whiskers represent the equal or lower and upper values of 1.5 times the interquartile range (between 25% and 75%).
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Collective behaviour, social interactions and leadership in animal groups are often driven by individual differences. However, most studies focus on same-species groups, in which individual variation is relatively low. Multispecies groups, however, entail interactions among highly divergent phenotypes, ranging from simple exploitative actions to co...
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... Interspecific foraging associations involving octopuses and fishes have been observed for decades in different regions of the world. Big blue octopus Octopus cyanea Gray, 1849 forms foraging associations in the Pacific Ocean (Forsythe and Hanlon 1997;Sampaio et al. 2024;Vail et al. 2013), Indian Ocean (Bayley and Rose 2020) and Red Sea (Diamant and Shpigel 1985;Sampaio et al. 2021Sampaio et al. , 2024Zander 2016). Common octopus Octopus vulgaris Cuvier, 1797 (Gasparini and Floeter 2001;Machado and Barreiros 2008;Mather 1992) and Brazil reef octopus Octopus insularis Leite & Haimovici, 2008(Felinto et al. 2020Krajewski et al. 2009;Pereira et al. 2011) form associations in the Atlantic Ocean. ...
... Interspecific foraging associations involving octopuses and fishes have been observed for decades in different regions of the world. Big blue octopus Octopus cyanea Gray, 1849 forms foraging associations in the Pacific Ocean (Forsythe and Hanlon 1997;Sampaio et al. 2024;Vail et al. 2013), Indian Ocean (Bayley and Rose 2020) and Red Sea (Diamant and Shpigel 1985;Sampaio et al. 2021Sampaio et al. , 2024Zander 2016). Common octopus Octopus vulgaris Cuvier, 1797 (Gasparini and Floeter 2001;Machado and Barreiros 2008;Mather 1992) and Brazil reef octopus Octopus insularis Leite & Haimovici, 2008(Felinto et al. 2020Krajewski et al. 2009;Pereira et al. 2011) form associations in the Atlantic Ocean. ...
... Most attendants of octopuses belong to the families Epinephelidae (groupers), Labridae (wrasses) and Mullidae (Diamant and Shpigel 1985;Felinto et al. 2020;Forsythe and Hanlon 1997;Gasparini and Floeter 2001;Krajewski et al. 2009;Machado and Barreiros 2008;Sampaio et al. 2021Sampaio et al. , 2024Sazima et al. 2007;Strand 1988;Vail et al. 2013;Zander 2016). A few attendants belong to the families Scorpaenidae (scorpionfishes or rockfishes) (Diamant and Shpigel 1985), Fistulariidae (cornetfishes) (Diamant and Shpigel 1985), Cirrhitidae (hawkfishes) (Strand 1988), Labrisomidae (Labrisomids) (Mather 1992), Pomacentridae (damselfishes) (Mather 1992), Carangidae (jacks and pompanos) (Sazima et al. 2007), Lutjanidae (Snappers) (Pereira et al. 2011), Haemulidae (grunts) (Pereira et al. 2011), Chaetodontidae (butterflyfishes) (Zander 2016) and Holocentridae (squirrelfishes and soldierfishes) (Sampaio et al. 2021). ...
Multi‐species fish foraging associations occur when individuals from two or more aquatic species forage with one another. Associations involving octopuses have been documented in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans and the Red Sea. To determine which fishes interact with an octopus species in temperate coastal waters off eastern Australia, we video‐recorded foraging common Sydney octopus, Octopus tetricus , at Fly Point in the Port Stephens‐Great Lakes Marine Park, New South Wales. This study provides evidence that crimsonband wrasse and Günther's wrasse from family Labridae and yellowfin bream from family Sparidae attend common Sydney octopus. The octopuses and attendants did not behave aggressively towards each other. However, aggression between different attendants and agonistic interactions between wrasses were observed. Octopuses produce visual cues, such as appearance changes and substrate disturbances, which may have attracted attendants. Following an octopus is a novel feeding behaviour that appears to be learned by only some individuals in each attendant species. These findings will improve our understanding of interspecies interactions and trophic relationships in temperate coastal marine ecosystems.
... These include the extended mate guarding reported in A. aculeatus (Huffard 2007;Huffard et al. 2008aHuffard et al. , 2010a and the sneaker mating behaviour in both A. aculeatus and O. cyanea (Tsuchiya and Uzu 1997;Huffard et al. 2008a). Another interesting case is the collaborative hunting observed between O. cyanea and reef fishes (e.g., wrasses, groupers and goatfishes) (Vail et al. 2013;Sampaio et al. 2021Sampaio et al. , 2024. Remarkably, the hunting relationship between O. cyanea and the coral trout on the Great Barrier Reef, where the coral trout performs a headstand gesture to signal the octopus where the prey hides, represents a case of referential gesture, a complex form of communication only reported in few non-human animals so far (namely corvids and apes) (Vail et al. 2013). ...
Octopus are well known for their rapidly changing and diverse body patterning achieved through combinations of chromatic, textural, postural and locomotory components. The function of octopus body patterns includes camouflage for prey ambush and predator avoidance, aposematic display to startle intruders and predators, and potentially intraspecific communication. However, as many octopus species are often solitary, body patterning during intraspecific social interactions is largely unexplored. Here we provide the first detailed description of body patterns and the associated components expressed during social interactions of the diurnal reef-dwelling species, Abdopus capricornicus. This is the first study aimed at disentangling the body patterns used for camouflage from those used for communication. This was achieved by staging interactions between octopus pairs under controlled conditions in a bare sand environment devoid of rocks or algae. While most studies on octopus interactions focused on mating behaviour, this study focused on the body patterns expressed during intrasexual (e.g. male-male, female-female) and intersexual interactions. Notably, A. capricornicus shows the richest body patterning repertoire among coastal octopuses studied so far, including 10 body patterns which comprise 27 chromatic, 8 postural and 10 locomotory components. In addition, 18 types of social encounters were identified. Numerous body patterns and components specifically expressed during their interactions were also identified, suggesting that the complexity of the visual stimuli experienced by A. capricornicus, including social cues from their frequent interactions, may contribute to its rich patterning.
... This behavioral plasticity, where local interaction rules shift to optimize group cohesion under threat, aligns with our model's prediction of flexible interaction strategies, underscoring the role of adaptive responses in enhancing group resilience under environmental stress. Finally, research on multispecies hunting groups involving Octopus cyanea and various fish shows that group dynamics are driven by role-specific leadership, with each species contributing differently based on their behavioral roles 49 . This hierarchical structure enables composition-dependent adaptability, where the octopus directs movement timing, and fish control spatial exploration. ...
Collective behavior in biological systems emerges from local interactions among individuals, enabling groups to adapt to dynamic environments. Traditional modeling approaches, such as bottom-up and top-down models, have limitations in accurately representing these complex interactions. We propose a novel potential field mechanism that integrates local interactions and environmental influences to explain collective behavior. This study introduces dynamic potential fields, where individuals perceive and respond to local potential fields generated by environmental cues and other individuals. We develop a mathematical framework combining distributed learning and swarm control to simulate and analyze collective behavior under varying conditions. Our simulations span a variety of environmental conditions, including standard environments where organisms interact under typical conditions, high noise environments where interactions are disrupted by random fluctuations, high density environments with increased competition for space, high risk environments featuring areas of strong negative potential field, and multiple resource environments with varying degrees of resource availability. These simulations demonstrate the adaptability and resilience of biological groups to changing and challenging conditions. Results reveal how potential fields facilitate the emergence of stable and coordinated behaviors, providing insights into self-organization, cooperation, and competition in nature. This framework enhances our understanding of collective behavior and has implications for bio-robotics, distributed systems, and complex networks.
... Conscious activities are observed in brainless land animals like snails, and several sea animals such as jellyfish, corral, octopus, sea urchin etc. Very complex group behavior and even competitive leadership between different marine species having brain (e.g., fish) and without the brain (e.g., octopus) has been recently reported [10]. ...
The paper develops a new road map along the axiology of consciousness-cognition-behavior for investigating brain-consciousness relationship, where the brain operates as natural, formal, informational (codal), live, and conscious system to make the unknown imaginable, imagined intelligible, intelligible possible, possible verifiable, and verifiable verified. Consciousness, on the other hand, as a non-observable and influential, supports the brain’s reflex activities, upholds habituated acts, and participates in cognitive functions. Consciousness uses the brain to make its political state
... While numerous observational and automated sensor-based techniques exist to study animal behaviour, the past decade has seen a significant increase in the use of animal tracking from camera-based technology Heins, 2023, Tuia et al., 2022]. The ability to record detailed movement and behavioural data of individual animals non-invasively, and over extended periods, has facilitated a range of discoveries across various aspects of animal lives-from the study of animal architecture [Smith et al., 2021] and the understanding of individual and collective animal decision-making , Sampaio et al., 2024, to revealing the mechanisms of social interactions that result in coordinated collective movement [Torney et al., 2018, Sridhar et al., 2023 and anti-predatory strategies [Rosenthal et al., 2015, Sosna et al., 2019, Davidson et al., 2021. ...
Understanding animal behaviour is central to predicting, understanding, and mitigating impacts of natural and anthropogenic changes on animal populations and ecosystems. However, the challenges of acquiring and processing long-term, ecologically relevant data in wild settings have constrained the scope of behavioural research. The increasing availability of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), coupled with advances in machine learning, has opened new opportunities for wildlife monitoring using aerial tracking. However, limited availability of datasets with wild animals in natural habitats has hindered progress in automated computer vision solutions for long-term animal tracking. Here we introduce BuckTales, the first large-scale UAV dataset designed to solve multi-object tracking (MOT) and re-identification (Re-ID) problem in wild animals, specifically the mating behaviour (or lekking) of blackbuck antelopes. Collected in collaboration with biologists, the MOT dataset includes over 1.2 million annotations including 680 tracks across 12 high-resolution (5.4K) videos, each averaging 66 seconds and featuring 30 to 130 individuals. The Re-ID dataset includes 730 individuals captured with two UAVs simultaneously. The dataset is designed to drive scalable, long-term animal behaviour tracking using multiple camera sensors. By providing baseline performance with two detectors, and benchmarking several state-of-the-art tracking methods, our dataset reflects the real-world challenges of tracking wild animals in socially and ecologically relevant contexts. In making these data widely available, we hope to catalyze progress in MOT and Re-ID for wild animals, fostering insights into animal behaviour, conservation efforts, and ecosystem dynamics through automated, long-term monitoring.
