An intelligent ocean species: Octopans

galanx

Notes: 1) Everything here (including supernovae) is as accurate as far as I can get it; only things related to Enteroctopus australis are departures from OTL. However, I'm no paleontologist, anthropologist or marine biologist, so everything comes from Google; criticism and suggestions welcomed.
2) A species such as I propose would butterfly away huge chunks of human history, including one Carolus Linnaeus and his naming system (not to mention Latin itself) but I'm handwaving all that away.

So, to start:

Biological and Cultural Evolution of the Sea People (Enteroctopus sapiens )


Phylum: Mollusca
Class : Cephalopoda
Order: Octopoda
Family: Octopodidae
Genus: enteroctopus (giant octopus)
Species: enteroctopus australis sapiens (Octopans)


Note:“Octopids” is the term used to describe the ancestors and relatives of E.sapiens, parallel to Hominids; “Octopans” for their intelligent descendants. Sea People (or its linguistic equivalent) is the common term used by almost all human communities which came in contact with them.


Size: weight 80-150 kg ; arm span 3-4 meters
Life expectancy: males and breeding females 10-12 years; sterile females 30-50 years
Range: world-wide; no permanent settlements in the Arctic or Antarctic Oceans

Though we have shared our planet with another intelligent life-form through all of human history, the vast differences between our habitats has made it difficult to gain a deep understanding of our fellow sapients.

In particular, their evolutionary path has been obscure. As shell-less soft-bodied ocean-dwellers, they have left little evidence in the fossil record, and the development of their own civilization has obliterated much of their past. However, recent advances in molecular biology, as well as underwater exploration techniques, have enabled us to begin to shed light on their origins and development, though there is still a large degree of conjecture involved in what follows.

Origins:
The closest relatives of E. sapiens are enteroctopus dofleinei , the North Pacific Giant Octopus, and two members of the same subgenus, E. australis australis (South Pacific Giant Octopus; Australies) and E. australis galapagosii(Galapagans).

The northern and southern species apparently split in the early Miocene, (23mya to 15mya) with australis becoming particularly adapted to life in coral reefs. Their point of origin appears to be the shallow waters surrounding Indonesia, from whence they spread into the Pacific.

As the climate cooled and the Antarctic ice sheets formed during the Middle Miocene, sea-levels dropped considerably. Many of the shallow waters inhabited by the Southern Octopus became isolated, subjecting the species to great environmental stress, and leading to the emergence of the forerunners of E.sapiens.
Evidence for their origin in shallow waters is provided by their ability to endure prolonged exposure to dry land. While many species of octopus can live for periods of up to half an hour out of the water, Octopans can spend several hours on land, or even longer if their skin is kept moist.

It was during this period that the major change occurred which thrust them on the path to dominance of the seas which they hold today: the evolution of their unique breeding cycle.
 
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galanx

Reproduction:

Other octopuses, including the Northern Giant, follow r-selected reproductive strategies, producing many offspring but providing no parental care. The female lays up to 100,000 eggs in a sheltered den, which hatch out as tiny plankton- like larvae, floating freely on the ocean currents, most of which are quickly gobbled up by predators. The remainder gradually sink to the bottom, and quickly mature into adults, living no more than 3-5 years.

Paradoxically, at least from our anthropocentric view, the mother octopus takes great care of her eggs, sealing herself in with them, keeping them free of parasites and aerating them by blowing water over them. She starves herself for a period of up to seven months while tending them, and then, when the eggs hatch, promptly dies, leaving her babies to the mercy of the environment.

Somewhere during the middle Miocene, some populations of australis began to shift their strategy, producing fewer but larger and stronger offspring, shortening the plankton stage of growth, and eventually doing away with it altogether.

The cause of this is uncertain- there has been some speculation that the change was due to the appearance of the modern baleen (plankton-feeding) whales in the Middle Miocene, while others have pointed to changes in climate and habitat as the main cause, citing the Middle Miocene Disruption.

Evidence for the latter is found in the reproduction strategy of E. galapagosii, a primitive relative of E. sapiens found along the west coast of South America.

In normal conditions, the trade winds blow the warm surface waters to the west, allowing for an upsurge of the cold nutrient-rich waters below, providing ample feeding for the octopus in their plankton stage. However, when the El Nino Southern Oscillation occurs the trade winds weaken, the warm surface waters remain, and the plankton populations (and dependent fish populations ) decline drastically. Under these conditions, the Galapagos Octopus shifts to producing smaller egg batches, which hatch directly to the baby octopus stage.

It should also be noted that during long-lasting El Nino events, the octopuses take longer to mature, as it requires more time for the female to reach the size necessary to produce the eggs and survive during her interment. Both sapiens and australis are slow growers, taking 10-12 and 6-9 years respectively to reach maturity, as compared to 3-5 to years for the Galapagans under normal conditions, and the same for the Giant Northern Pacific Octopus.

( Galapagos split off earlier from the Southern lineage; in primate terms one can compare Galapagos to the orangutan, and Australies to the chimpanzee.)
 

galanx

Evolution of Social Behavior and Communications:

It was around this time that the first signs of group behavior begin to occur- this is based on the observation of primitive group behavior among Galapagans, which according to the molecular clock split off during this period. The most accepted theory holds that the isolated populations led to inbreeding, which in turn led to the rise of kin-based altruism.
(An alternate theory is that environmental stress led to the development of reciprocal (non-kin) altruism in the form of co-operation in hunting fish, a behavior found in some squid- possibly both were in play.)

According to standard theory, the bottleneck factor for australis was not food, but the scarcity of the dens so necessary for the protection of the eggs. Shortages of dens led to females guarding their territory from intruders more tightly- the males continued to roam more freely- which in turn led to co-operation against outsiders from the closely- related populations.

This also was held to have encouraged the development of communications. Octopuses of all kinds have the ability to change color and patterns rapidly, and use this to signal emotions. Being amorphous as well, it would be hard to distinguish between local members and outsiders; therefore signaling in code originated in the need to recognize
fellow members of the same group.

Since it was in the interest of an intruder to be able to fool group members, an evolutionary code-war led to increasingly intricate and complicated patterns of display, perfectly pre-adapted for language.

Evolutionary Breakthrough: Menopause.

Competition among females within the group for scarce dens was also intense, and this led to the formation of alliances among females approaching the breeding stage.
When mating season approaches a series of challenges establishes a pecking order among the females, with a small group of alpha females using both chemical and behavioral means to prevent other females from mating.(For analogous behavior among mammals, see the bizarre case of the naked mole rat.)

Octopuses mate by having the male insert a modified arm into the female’s mantle, and depositing a spermatophore (sperm ball) which the female retains until she starts to lay her eggs. In the case of Australies , an observation has been made of three members of a female alpha group approaching a lower-ranking female which had successfully mated. Two of the dominant females could be seen holding her arms while the third reached in with an oyster shell and scraped the spermatophore out. The subordinate female fled, badly wounded, and was not recorded among the group again.
Such a destructive pattern of behavior would have been gradually modified so that displays of dominance would be enough to inhibit inferior females, though "sneak" mating may still occur.

Once fertilized, the successful females would follow typical octopus behavior by disappearing into the dens, producing and tending their eggs, and then dying.
The unsuccessful females would reabsorb any eggs they might have developed, and would then pass through a menopause, having lost their chance at reproduction.
Free from the stress of egg-laying and guarding however, they would not die- unlike the short-lived males which die almost immediately after mating.

The question of why non-fertile females would continue to live so long can be answered by looking at an analogous case- the social insects. Like worker bees and ants, the sterile females are related to the young produced by their fertile sisters, and their chance of passing down their genes is enhanced by caring for and protecting their young relatives.

Of course the haplodiploid system of the Hymnoptera has resulted in the pattern of sterile females caring for the young of their fertile relatives rising independently many times among the ants, bees and wasps, as opposed to only once among the Octopoda. However other examples of eusocial behavior exist i.e. termites and the above-mentioned mole rats.

(The appearance of menopause in human females has been attributed to the relatively slow maturation process of human infants, and the greater risks of childbirth associated with larger brains; after a time a female’s reproductive fitness will be enhanced by tending to existing children and grandchildren rather than producing new ones.)

With a longer life-span, the menopausal females would be able to develop and pass along knowledge that would enhance the group’s chances of survival, and, like humans, break the limits of biological evolution by adding the powerful engine of cultural evolution to their survival strategy.
 
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galanx

Later Evolution:

Somewhere early in the Pliocene (roughly 5mya) the lineage leading to E. sapiens split with that of australis ; there were of course many other related species which have since become extinct.

It was during this period that tool use began to first develop. All octopuses are superb manipulators, able to unscrew jars and pull corks out of bottles, so it is little surprise that the evolving intelligence of the Octopid lineage (as we can now call it) took advantage of this ability.

Some have speculated that it was the spread of the pinnipeds (seals, sea lions and walruses) and modern toothed cetaceans like the dolphins that led to tool use for defense.
Certainly the appearance of these fast-moving, intelligent, and rapacious predators would have been disturbing, and there is something intrinsically appealing about the image of the earliest Octopids defending themselves picking up stones, razor-clam shells or sea-urchins. However, more prosaic explanations are likely to be closer to the truth. Struggles with crabs and clams, rather than sea lions, were probably the driving impetus.


Traditionally, the closing of the gap between North and South America by the Isthmus of Panama about 3mya has been thought to be the event driving the Octopids on their upward path. Indeed for a while an “Out of the Caribbean” Theory was proposed, which held that E. sapiens evolved in that area after having been isolated by rise of Panama.
Further research on the spread of the Sea People has led to its abandonment, though a “multiple-origin” hypothesis is still argued by some.

Lately, evidence for a supernovae explanation for the mass extinction of plankton and other marine life at the Pliocene-Pliestocene Boundary (2mya), and this has been proposed as the cause of the environmental pressure which led to the rapid advance of the Octopid Sapients.

Tool Use:

During the Pleistocene tool use became a major factor in the advance of the ancestral species of the octopans . Like their hominid counterparts, they made use of stones for procuring food, cracking crab shells and prying open shellfish. They also used stone for building much earlier, continuing the ancestral practice of den-building and extending it to much larger and more spacious communal shelters. They made much greater use of biological tools, especially for weapons, utilizing the poisonous properties of jellyfish, cone snails, and even their cousins like the blue-ringed octopus. They also began to manipulate coral, both physically and through breeding, starting the process that would culminate in constructions like the magnificent classical structures of the Great Barrier Reef or the exuberant rococo ‘palaces’ of the Caribbean.

Communications: Chromalingua

It has long been recognized that chromalingua (color-talk) is the main form of communication of the octopans. As noted above, many species of octopus use color changes to communicate, and the rise of social living caused an immense increase in the sophistication and flexibility of this ability. For a long period it was thought that the smooth bulge above and between the eyes of the octopan was a result of the development of a larger brain: it is now realized that the brain sits farther down and back.

(It is this bulge that makes the octopus look “smart”, possibly an important point during the first contacts between our species; likewise our brain bulge may have made it more plausible to them that we were capable of speech. It is also responsible for the “cute” reaction humans have to baby octopans; with their bulging foreheads and enormous eyes they trigger the affectionate feelings we have to our own young- and vice-versa?)
What the bulge represents is an enormous collection of color corpuscles, backed by a vast neural network which controls them, enabling complicated patterns to be rapidly displayed. Being directly above the eyes, this enables speedy transmission between the eyes, brain, and speech organ.

Color-talk has been transferred to other media, of course. What appears to the untrained human eye as incomprehensible squiggles and splotches resembling an abstract painting is actually the equivalent of a book. Night-time speech was mastered with the collection of bioluminescent organisms which can be used to transmit a simplified code which suffices for ordinary communication.

The enormous gatherings where huge intricate patterns are formed by the changing skin colors of up to tens of thousands of octopans are the equivalents of our symphonies and plays, and are accompanied by the appropriate emotions.
 

galanx

Spread of the Sea Peoples:

Armed with these tools, and possessing a high intelligence, the octopans (true E. sapiens) began to spread from their ancestral home surrounding Indonesia. They pushed into the Pacific, displacing other species of australis, and spread through the Indian Ocean, eventually rounding the southern cape of Africa and spreading into the Atlantic, eventually moving into the Mediterranean. By about 40,000 years ago they had effectively spread world wide, with the exception of the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans.

(While being able to survive in the deep ocean, at this stage they were still primarily shallow and coastal water dwellers.)

Aquaculture:

Creating sheltered coral gardens for the protection of their young, they bred species such as the Defense Urchin, with its formidable three-meter spines, and the Cannon Snail, capable of firing deadly poisonous darts over great distances.

Food species were also cultivated, and, like humans, they concentrated on breeding meatier and more defenseless varieties: slow-moving easily-herded fish, soft-shelled clawless crabs and the whosthere clam, which obligingly opens when its shell is tapped upon.

Two other kinds of domesticated animals would be greatly useful.

Reaching deep into the depths, they successfully tamed the giant squid, adapting it for more shallow waters and varied purposes- construction, moving heavy loads, and both defense and offense in sieges.

Far more important would be another development: the taming of the marine mammals.

Octopuses had long lived in kelp beds, utilizing them for food and shelter from predators. As the octopan species spread, they began to use kelp beds as floating homes, binding the kelp strands together, pushing into the deep waters of the Pacific, living a nomadic life and only coming to shallow waters to breed. These nomadic sea-dwellers led a more primitive existence than their settled counterparts, and there was often open warfare between them, especially when the wanderers tried to take over breeding dens.

From being the prey of cetaceans such as dolphins, the octopans had turned into predators, trapping them in snares and nets, or attacking them with poison when they tried to raid the kelp beds. It was probably from orphaned young dolphins that the young sea people began to hitch rides, eventually taming them and breeding them to the point where they were thoroughly domesticated, and could be relied on not to turn on their masters (mistresses, actually). From there they turned to taming other cetaceans and pinnifeds, herding them and using them to herd fish, turning the great plankton fields into their pastures.

It also allowed them to launch attacks on their more civilized fellows. One can imagine the panic caused by the first sweeping attacks, when masses of their ancient enemies the dolphins, now directed by intelligent minds aimed at conquest and plunder, came swarming out of the great uncharted spaces of the oceans. It was many thousands of years before the advance of progress enabled the settled reef dwellers to once and for all beat back the rapacious nomads of the open seas.

By taming the larger species of baleen whales, the nomadic Sea People could also utilize them as beasts of burden and transport, harnessing them to pull the great kelp rafts in their long migrations across the open oceans.

A final advantage came later. With the rise of larger social organizations – “empires”, “states” or their equivalents, the larger cetaceans could be used for long-distance communicating across the vast distances their communities spanned.
 

Atom

I don't think Giant squid could be domesticated. You need to have a group structure for that (see Guns Germs and Steel) and aren't they solitary creatures? Other than that great work!
 

Roberto

Amazing! I am truly speechless.

One nitpick I have concerns the domestication of marine mammals. It would be quite a burden for the sea people to have to have their mounts go to the surface and breathe every few hours. That would be a considerable disadvantage concerning deep-sea settlements. How would the sea people get around that?
 

galanx

Atom said:
I don't think Giant squid could be domesticated. You need to have a group structure for that (see Guns Germs and Steel) and aren't they solitary creatures? Other than that great work!
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Thanks, and, yeah, I'd forgotten about that. I was going to include the the bit from Jared about the necessity of domesticable animals (is that a word?) being social when I talked about the taming of the dolphins, but I forgot it would have to apply to the squid. But then, maybe the octopans never read Guns, Germs etc.. ;)
Maybe they are like Asian elephants, with each new generation born in the wild, then tamed rather than domesticated. Of course, elephants are social animals. Maybe cheetahs....
 
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galanx

Tomb said:
Great work!
But I can't help but laugh about the riding the dolphins part x3
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Yeah, that was a bit of a wank. Anybody, including me, who managed to wade through the first bit deserved a bit of Genghis Squid and the Eight-Armed Hordes.
 

galanx

AHFanatic said:
Amazing! I am truly speechless.

One nitpick I have concerns the domestication of marine mammals. It would be quite a burden for the sea people to have to have their mounts go to the surface and breathe every few hours. That would be a considerable disadvantage concerning deep-sea settlements. How would the sea people get around that?
Click to expand...

They're shallow-water dwellers who can actually live in the air for fairly lengthy periods, up to a few hours. One thing I learned while doing this was that octopuses can actually leave the water and crawl around for a while. They can crawl onto fish boats, open bolts on hatches and slither inside to eat crabs caught by fisherman.:eek:

The octopans evolved in drying coastal areas, so, like lungfish, they would have been caught in situations where they would have had to occasionally transit dry land, and they're able to spend longer periods out of the water.

Also, the fierce barbarians who first tamed the dolphins lived in giant kelp rafts floating on/near the surface, Though they could plunge into the deep when necessary, most of their time was spent at shallow depths. The deep areas to them would have been like high elevations to us. Sometimes you have to transit there, or even drive your flocks, but usually you're glad to get back to the shallows/lowlands.

And don't forget the Pacific Tree Octopus;)

http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/
 

galanx

And, sorry, should have acknowledged Kaptain Kurk for inspiring this with his original post on intelligent sea species.
 

Hendryk

Banned
As remarked in the previous thread about an intelligent marine species, I have a certain fondness for octopi, so I'm quite enjoying this.

Considering that this species has spread throughout the world's oceans by the time Homo Sapiens evolves on land, one can imagine that contact between the two are at least as old as human civilisation, and possibly older in the case of early seagoing communities (unless it's the Octopans who venture on land first?). This will imply a fundamental difference with mankind as it exists in OTL, since the existence of non-human intelligence will be accepted as a fact from the beginning.
 

galanx

ninebucks said:
Excellent! I can't wait to hear about the contacts with the humans.
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Please feel free to jump in with ideas- I'm exhausted!

One of the reasons I chose this POD was to get them in place a little before humans. Some of the objections from the original "Intelligent Ocean-Dwelling Species" thread were about the technological advantages humans would have, with control of fire and metals and all.

But if pretty well everywhere humans showed up at the coast, they'd run into intelligent ocean-dwellers... dug-out canoes, rafts or even triremes ain't gonna help you much against these guys.
 
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