"Bill Turlock" "Bill Turlock wrote:

Don't anthropomorphize the octupii, they hate that.

But, all seriousnes aside, I clearly remember seeing a film a
long time ago where an octupus would crawl out of its tank and
unscrew a mason jar with a food-critter in it. I suspect that
they are very intelligent. But not intelligent enough to avoid
getting caught.

An effective bait for catching octopuses (Fowler discourages the use of
"octopi") is said to be a colorful bit of rag at the end of a fishing line
(cf. John Fowles, "The Magus"), which seems to set an upper bound on this
cephalopod's intelligence.

Alan "Just as a bit of rag in Filene's Basement does ours" Brooks