An Eight-Armed Genius Just Passed the Mirror Test
The News
Scientists at Dartmouth College found that octopuses can use mirrors as tools to find food hidden where they can't see it directly. The clever cephalopods succeeded about 73% of the time — a kind of "tool use" that until now had only been seen in animals with backbones, like birds, dolphins, and us.
Professor Pip's whiskers twitched as he reached deep into his lab coat pocket. "Aha! Just the thing." He pulled out a small round mirror, no bigger than a teacup, and held it up so a sunbeam bounced off its surface and danced on the ceiling.
"Today, my fellow scientists, we have a visitor." He gestured to a round glass tank on the table, where a curious red-orange octopus drifted lazily through the water. "Her name is Octavia, and she has a secret."
"Octavia?" said Mia, pressing her nose to the cool glass.
"She's staring at me," whispered Leo.
"Of course she is." Pip's crooked spectacles slipped down his nose. "Octopuses are brilliant. And today we're going to ask her a clever question: can Octavia use a mirror as a tool?"
He held the small mirror up against the side of the tank. Octavia's bulbous eyes swiveled. One curling arm extended slowly toward the glass.
"Watch this," Pip whispered. He held up a tiny piece of shrimp and tucked it behind Octavia, where she couldn't possibly see it. But the mirror? The mirror caught the shrimp's reflection perfectly.
Octavia's body shifted. Her eyes flicked to the mirror — then she launched herself backward, straight to the shrimp! WHOOSH!
The children gasped.
"She saw it in the mirror!" Mia cried.
"Precisely!" Pip clapped his paws. "She used the mirror as a tool. Now — that ability is called tool use, and it means using one thing to solve a problem with another. Until last week, scientists thought only animals with backbones could do that — birds, dolphins, us. But Octavia and her cousins changed everything."
Leo's eyes widened. "Like when I use a spoon to scoop snow off my mom's car!"
"Exactly right!" Pip beamed. "Your spoon isn't food, but it helps you reach the food — or in your case, the windshield. Octavia's mirror isn't food either. But she figured out: this shiny thing shows me where the snack is."
Pip's tail swished thoughtfully. He looked out the window at the bright blue ocean. "Somewhere out there, an octopus might be lifting up a shell right now to see what's hiding underneath. We've barely begun to understand how clever they really are."
He handed Mia and Leo each a small mirror. "Now you try. Put it somewhere clever and see what you can spot that you couldn't before. A scientist always asks: what can this tool show me?"
Spark a Conversation
- What's something you use as a tool every day that isn't food, but helps you get to something you want?
- If an octopus can solve a mirror puzzle, what else do you think octopuses might be able to figure out?
- What's the difference between just looking in a mirror and using a mirror to find something?