Recent studies found octopuses can solve problems, open closed jars, learn through guided experiences and reuse what they learned in new situations.
Jar-opening experiments showed those skills working together: octopuses observed mechanisms, coordinated precise arm movements, learned by trial and error, and remembered successful actions.
A highly developed nervous system helps explain that performance, with many neurons distributed through the arms, allowing fast, precise responses and sophisticated object manipulation.
Findings published through the 2020s challenge the idea that advanced learning depends on social living, because octopuses show complex cognition despite largely solitary behavior.
Those results are widening research into animal intelligence by suggesting advanced cognition can evolve along different paths under the right environmental pressures.