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I love that we are getting to see first hand how this evolution thing works.
When things like this happen it just goes to show which species will be able to adapt more readily to changing environments.
There was a story about birds, could be a kingfisher, egret or heron, that learned to "fish" for fish by taking a piece of bread (fed to ducks) and placing in shallow water. When the baitfish came in to feed on the bread, the bird would pluck the fish and eat its fill in no time.
It seems the birds had seen how the fish were eating the bread that had been tossed in the water for the ducks and they were able to deduce a "bird-brained" plan to fish for themselves.
The squid may have seen more than enough gulls in shallow waters to figure some way to get one for itself.
That also reminds me of my last visit to the New England Aquarium.
I was telling my neices and nephews what I knew about the octopus (based on years of tv nature shows) and one of the curators offered his own story.
It seems that they had a problem with a number of fish dissappearing from their exhibits, and the staff were at a loss as to what happened to the fish and how it took place. After a number of these events, they set up a surveilance camera to hopefully catch the culprit in the act.
They did find out the answer, but it surprised them all!
It just so happened that the giant octopus tank was directly across from the fish tank crime scene, meaning the tanks were back to back with a small walk way between for the staff to get access to the tanks. The octopus could see the fish in these tanks, and would climb out of its tank, crawl across the floor to the fish tanks, climb in and eat, and then climb back to its own tank.
From that point on they lock the lid of the octopus tank so it can't get out any more.
I laughed out loud when he told me this, as I thought it was truly amazing.
Evolution....remember that nature abhors a vacuum!!!
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