Sydney (Global Adventures): Scientists in Australia have discovered an octopus that actually makes use of tools. They say that the behavior has never been seen before in an invertebrate. Dr. Mark Norman and Dr. Julian Finn spent more than 500 hours filming and observing the veined octopus picking out halved coconut shells from the sea floor, emptying them out, carrying them under their body and putting two shells together to create a hiding place.

While hermit crabs carry shells to protect their soft bodies, the veined octopuses, or Amphioctopus marginatus, go one step further. It is this planning for the future that makes their behavior so sophisticated, according to Dr. Mark Norman, senior curator at Museum Victoria in Melbourne.

"It comes at a cost, carrying these shells in this awkward way, and it's a fantastic example of complex behaviors in what we consider the lower life forms," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “This study, if anything, shows that these complex behaviors aren't limited to us. They are actually employed by a wide range of animals.”

"I was gob smacked. I mean, I've seen a lot of octopuses hiding in shells, but I've never seen one that grabs it up and jogs across the sea floor. I was trying hard not to laugh," said Finn, a research biologist. “So over the 10-year period basically we observed about 20 octopuses and we would have seen about four different individuals carrying coconut shells over large distances."

Truly amazing video footage of an octopus transporting shells and putting them together to create a shelter can be seen in a YouTube clip here:

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