In what’s believed to be the first ever documented case or corporal punishment in nature, new research from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior details observations of cyanea maraud octopuses not so much leading but enforcing group hunts with less-intelligent species of fish – and often beating the fish for getting distracted and failing to stay focused, NBC News reports.
The fish most often getting beaten for not following the octopus’s commands appear to be the blacktip groupers. “The ones that get more punched are the main exploiters of the group. These are the ambush predators, the ones that don’t move, don’t look for prey,” said the study’s lead author, postdoctoral researcher Eduardo Sampaio. “If the group is very still and everyone is around the octopus, it starts punching, but if the group is moving along the habitat, this means that they’re looking for prey, so the octopus is happy. It doesn’t punch anyone.” Sampaio theorizes this is learned, and not instinctual behavior as the younger octos seem to have a harder time fish-herding.
“In my intuition, I think it’s something they learn, because the smaller octopuses seem to have a higher difficulty to collaborate with fish than the large ones,” Sampaio told NBC News.