A video and paper in Current Biology about a veined octopus,
Amphioctopus marginatus, that carries coconut halves to deploy
as a shelter has gotten a lot of play in the popular press. The
story is usually accompanied by the claim that this is the first
reported case of invertebrate tool use. Maybe this is true
amongst the squishies (cephalopods), but I think that arthropods
accomplish much more exciting feats of tool use every day.
Coconut octopus, meet coconut crab. Earlier, I talked a little
about coconut crabs, mentioning that they use mollusk shells
when they are small, and eventually discard them as they grow.
They also have an intermediate size behavior where they use
hollowed out coconut shells as a shelter. Photos: Finn et al.,
2009 and Nancy and Neil. First a disclaimer: I think cephalopods
are awesome. They are probably the second coolest animal group
behind mantis shrimp. Also, this video and paper represent a
really interesting finding, and any antagonism in this post is
meant to be humorous. I on