it seem clear that individuals of octopus vularis can learn from other individuals of the same species. in fact, they seem to learn more quickly by observing what other octopuses do than through human training ; it took the octopuses at least 17 trails to learn by shock/reward training but only 4 trails to learn by example ! we fully expect to find this sort of learning by copying among chimpanzees ( monkey see,monkey do) and the other vertebrates , but to find it also among molluscs is indeed intriguing. one wonders about the extent to which octopuses can learn more complex behaviors by example, and about the things octopuses might actually be learning from each other in the field.