Fish act as a kind of guide, finding prey and ‘pointing out’ their location to the octopus, which can use its flexible arms to catch the hidden prey.
A group of fish chase a smaller fish through the water, but the fish manages to hide under some rocks so that it cannot be reached. It is at this point that the octopus steps out, lies down on top of the rock formation and ‘forces’ the fish out again. Either the octopus gets a meal, or if it manages to escape once again, the other fish are around to catch it.
This is what co-operation between two completely different species can look like.
A remarkable discovery made by researchers at the Max Planck Institute in Konstanz, Germany, when they followed the behaviour of octopuses.
