> I was reading _Invertabrates_ by Brusca and Brusca, a very large and
> good book which has a small but informative section on cephalopods,
> last night. It seems all cephalopods are carnivores. This should not
> be viewed as a problem, since so are many human pets (dogs, cats)
> and one variant of humanity (Eskimoes).
>
> The octopus has the largest brain of all the cephalopods and from the
> diagrams and text (they did not give any numbers), its brain appears
> much larger than a squid's. The squid's brain does not even come
> close -- more like comparing a human's brain to that of a mouse.
Reading this, I have to ask: did they include the giant squid?
The Pacific giant octopus is basically on a human scale; the giant
squid is HUGE, with tentacles known to exceed fifty feet in some
cases.
However, the giant squid is a deep-water creature, that has trouble
tolerating the low pressures to be found near the surface of the
ocean. To the best of my knowledge, scientists have never managed to
do any meaningful observation of one in its natural habitat or in
good health. What we know of them is from dead or near-dead ones,
and fragments (which are usually sections of tentacle), that have
floated to the surface and washed ashore or otherwise been spotted.
(I personally think the giant squid is a bad choice for an uplift
experiment. But NOT because of small brains. For one good reason,
read the previous paragraph. For another, what we DO know
about them indicates that they are rather less than sociable.)
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