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I have been dreaming up the idea of an octopus civilization, they interact with humans through trade and such and spread across the seven seas, and ally with humans against their enemies and their human allies engaging in massive naval battles or smth >:D

And of course this can't be any such Octopus, I want the species of Octopus to be human size, to make interactions between them cooler and more "equal" scale etc. Something like the size of Giant Pacific Octopus is perfect for it!

enter image description here

Buuut theres just one problem, octopus these size only ever live in cooler water, the Giant Pacific Octopus only lives in waters colder than 15 Celsius (Their ideal is 7-12 C), while the waters around Europe(A place I'm adamant on them being able to live in) are in the 20s C. Now initially I thought they could just evolve to live in the warmer waters but it turns out that it's more complicated than that.

For one, it says something that all the biggest octopus live in cold water. For two, living in warmer waters have been shown in other large species of octopus to make them smaller, which isn't desired. The warmer waters have less oxygen than colder waters. Warmer water also shortens the lifespan of octopus(Not wanted, I need these sapient octopus to have long lifespans) as well as increases their metabolism (The metabolism increase I'm actually fine with, it even makes for a good reason for their sapience in the first place, i.e. higher food needs forces them to team up to surivive.).

So I humbly ask you, people of Worldbuilding Stack Exchange, if you could come up with a solution? How could an Octopus evolve to, while living in 20s C surface water, both be large(Giant Pacific Octopus large) and not have their lifespans shortened to a speck and their food consumption be through the roof

Note: If there is some sort of technological adaptation rather than evolutionary one that could do the job, that these sapient Octopus could invent very early on, then that'd work too

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  • $\begingroup$ What's wrong with eating? Humans eat that much per day if they can. Many animals eat much more. $\endgroup$
    – Kilisi
    Commented Aug 20 at 1:38
  • $\begingroup$ This is actually the one change I think I'm comfortable with, it may be beneficial even. When the Octopus be in warm waters and their food needs go up, it may be a driving force for them to team up to meet their food needs, which could be a perfect reasoning for why they developed Sapience in the first place :D! Although that still leaves the size problems and lifespan problems though. $\endgroup$
    – KaffeeByte
    Commented Aug 20 at 3:08
  • $\begingroup$ The problem with octopi is that they die after their one and only mating, when they're 1-5 years old. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus. Colder water would slow growth and delay mating. $\endgroup$
    – Monty Wild ♦
    Commented Aug 20 at 3:51
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    $\begingroup$ "Waters around Europe are in the 20s C": Are you sure that you are not confusing Europe with India? The average temperature of the Baltic Sea varies between 2 to 17 °C in summer and 2 to 4 °C in winter; the average temperature of the North Sea is 17 °C (63 °F) in summer and 6 °C (43 °F) in winter; and while I'm too lazy to look up the average temperature of the north-eastern Atlantic off the coast of Scandinavia I am quite certain is it does not go above 15 °C even in the middle of summer. Yes, the Mediterranean is warm; but there is a lot more water around Europe than the Mediterranean. $\endgroup$
    – AlexP
    Commented Aug 20 at 10:58
  • $\begingroup$ @AlexP Ah I did not really think about that. most of the the waters around Europe really would be cold like that lol. An increase in tolerable temperature would still be needed though, for one as the route to Europe from the Pacific goes through warmer waters, and because it'd give them more locales and civilizations/countries to trade with $\endgroup$
    – KaffeeByte
    Commented Aug 21 at 12:56

4 Answers 4

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Most octopi die after mating, making them effectively semelparous. However, the Larger Pacific Striped Octopus is known to be iteroparous, breeding several times throughout its life.

The reason that most octopi in warmer water currently die sooner is because they grow and mature more quickly in such environments, breed, then die.

Given that octopi are capable of iteroparity, evolutionary pressures could concievably extend their lifespans. As they are, octopi are r-strategists, producing a great many offspring, having a short lifespan, and usually lower intelligence.

In order to produce sentient, long-lived octopi, the main trait that would need to evolve is a shift from an r-strategy with many disposable offspring and short lives, to a K-strategy, having fewer offspring that are cared for, which promotes longer lives. With longer lives and the capability of learning from experience and communicating those experiences to the next generations, there would be evolutionary pressure to delay senescence. This would then lead to the human-like situation of having multiple generations living at the same time.

Part of the evolutionary pressures toward intelligence is sociability. Having to outsmart one's neighbours produces a runaway growth in intelligence, whereas having to outsmart one's environment is self-limiting... once you're smart enough, there's no more pressure.

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    $\begingroup$ The bizarre form **octopi triggers me. If octopus is treated as an English noun, the expected plural is octopuses. If we assume that the readers have a classical education and we take the word octopus as a Greek noun, the plural is octopodes. In Latin it would be singular *octopes, plural *octopedes. There is no reasonable way to get to **octopi. $\endgroup$
    – AlexP
    Commented Aug 20 at 12:50
  • $\begingroup$ @AlexP Perhaps this will help: dictionary.com/e/octopuses-or-octopi $\endgroup$
    – Monty Wild ♦
    Commented Aug 20 at 13:46
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    $\begingroup$ @AlexP Unless, of course, you have just enough education to know that words that end in -us tend to have plurals in -i. It's a hypercorrection of a perceived Latin word $\endgroup$
    – No Name
    Commented Aug 20 at 13:47
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    $\begingroup$ @AlexP Trying to Latinize English words that have no business being Latinized has been a pastime of English grammarians as long as there have been English grammarians. $\endgroup$
    – Michael W.
    Commented Aug 20 at 17:07
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    $\begingroup$ @AlexP there are no rules in english, English doesn’t “borrow” from other languages: it follows them down dark alleys, knocks them over, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar and valuable vocabulary. English has rules the same way calvinball has rules. $\endgroup$
    – John
    Commented Aug 20 at 21:21
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It is perfectly possible that some or all species of octopi are already intelligent beings and people. But they have grave disadvantages in developing civilization.

So possibly if humans discover in the future that some species of octopi are intelligent beings they might decide to treat them like people and uplift them to a civilized state. They may make land suits or breathing gear for octopi to spend large amounts of time out of water.

If they have invented devices like Star Trek: The Next Generation replicators and fusion power generators they may make waterproof versions of them for the use of Octopi.

They may use generic engineering to enable large species of octopi to live in warmer waters. And they may use genetic engineering to enable octopi to live many times longer, and to not die after giving birth, and to have far fewer children Which they need to take care of and raise. And give them language of some sort so they can teach what they learn to their children.

But maybe you don't want humans to uplift octopi but for intelligent octopi to develop civilization on their own. Then you might have a problem.

Fortunately convergent evolution can be your friend. There are many species of animals on Earth which might possibly be intelligent beings and people. The other great apes, proboscideans, cetaceans, corvids and parrots, and cephalopods.

If such body shapes can evolve on Earth, they can evolve on other Earthlike planets. If such body shapes can evolve on Earth and can evolve to have possibly human levels of intelligence, they can evolve - and can evolve to have possibly human levels of intelligence - on other Earthlike planets.

So space explorers may have discovered many intelligent species with octopus like body forms in the oceans of other planets, and may have uplifted them to civilization. And thus a spaceship which comes to Earth might have several species of intelligent beings in their crew, including octopus shaped ones and water dwelling ones.

So possibly if a giant alien spaceship comes to Earth and land dwelling aliens with various body forms emerge from the landing craft and have many dealings with Earth humans, when they leave they may introduce us to some water-dwelling aliens who spent time in the oceans while the others were dealing with humans on land. And they may say that the water dwelling aliens left surprises for humans in the oceans.

And then humans may gradually discover new civilizations of octopi in the oceans.

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Solution: Outpost

Let's stick to the facts as close as possible:

Octopusses live in colder water. They are born there, grow up and evolve there. Their evolutionary processes all take place in the colder depths.

But octopi can survive in warmer water. Meaning, they can be there but not for too long. This "too long" is up to you. Can be a year or 10 years. Just to be enough for an octopus-individual to be around long enough for a nice plot to happen. Afterwards this nice creature might get back to his colder home for retirement or so.

The octopussiscient-society found that having contact with humans is beneficial to them. So they built a trading outpost, science outpost, or whatever, to establish a point of contact with the humans in warmer and shallower waters.

But only a few (number is up to you) of them are stationed there. It is like a "job" to them, being in that outpost and doing the trading and the interaction with humans.

The majority of cephalopodes dwells in the colder regions where they have their main "cities" and everything. There is a constant "trade" from the main city to the outpost and from there with the humans and vice versa.

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To survive in warm waters, large sapient octopuses would need to adapt by regulating their temperature, efficiently managing oxygen, adjusting their habitat, and modifying their behavior to avoid overheating.

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    $\begingroup$ Can you be more specific on some of the things? $\endgroup$
    – KaffeeByte
    Commented Aug 21 at 15:55

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