Octopuses Use Mirrors for Spatial Cognition

Researchers at Dartmouth College, led by Mary Kieseler and Peter Ulric Tse, have discovered that octopuses can learn to use mirrors to locate hidden food, a cognitive ability previously only documented in vertebrates. The study, published in Current Biology, involved training California two-spot octopuses to interpret mirror reflections to find a virtual crab image projected behind them, achieving 73% accuracy. This finding suggests that complex spatial cognition may be a product of convergent evolution, given the vast evolutionary distance between humans and octopuses. The research provides new insights into animal intelligence and how species navigate complex environments, potentially indicating that octopuses possess internal spatial maps.