PLOS ONE<\/em><\/a>, Godfrey-Smith and his colleagues describe how the octopuses launch the shells and other debris in the direction of their neighbours by holding them in front of their siphon and propelling them with a jet of exhaled water.<\/p>\n\u201cAt most it\u2019s about 50 per cent accurate,\u201d says Godfrey-Smith. \u201cThe big question,\u201d he says, is whether they are actively targeting neighbours with their throws, or whether direct hits are an unintentional consequence of some other function, such as housekeeping.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are quite a few cases where a male has been bugging a female for mating, and the female throws stuff at him. There\u2019s another between two females that were tussling and poking at each other and the throws were mixed in with that sort of get-out-of-my-face behaviour.\u201d<\/p>\n
Main image: Octopuses caught on camera throwing objects \u00a9 Peter Godfrey-Smith et al.<\/em><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Stuart Blackman Published: Wednesday, 30 November 2022 at 12:00 am Some animals are made for high-density, communal living, but octopuses aren\u2019t among them. Australia\u2019s gloomy octopuses are \u2013 like most of its kind \u2013 solitary animals by inclination. And yet in Jervis Bay, drawn by a plentiful supply of scallops, they pack themselves together […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":22597,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/11\/octopuses-throw-things-at-their-neighbours.jpg",1557,1038,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/11\/octopuses-throw-things-at-their-neighbours-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/11\/octopuses-throw-things-at-their-neighbours-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/11\/octopuses-throw-things-at-their-neighbours-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/11\/octopuses-throw-things-at-their-neighbours-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/11\/octopuses-throw-things-at-their-neighbours-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2022\/11\/octopuses-throw-things-at-their-neighbours.jpg",1557,1038,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Stuart Blackman Published: Wednesday, 30 November 2022 at 12:00 am Some animals are made for high-density, communal living, but octopuses aren\u2019t among them. Australia\u2019s gloomy octopuses are \u2013 like most of its kind \u2013 solitary animals by inclination. And yet in Jervis Bay, drawn by a plentiful supply of scallops, they pack themselves together…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/22596"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}