Located In Jervis Bay, off the south coast of New South Wales, Australia, the incredible ‘city’ is made of of specially crafted dens made up from sand and shells, built and occupied by approximately 15 of the cephalopods.
The unusual discovery suggests that the species is much more social than previously thought.
An international team of researchers setup an underwater camera to observe the group and the city, which captured on film the creatures meeting up, communicating and driving away intruders together. There were even occasions of some of the inhabitants being evicted by the others. They recorded 10 hours of video footage of the site, which lies 10 to 15 metres (33 to 49 feet) under the water and measures 18 by 4 metres (59 by 13 feet).
“These behaviors are the product of natural selection, and may be remarkably similar to vertebrate complex social behavior,” said lead researcher David Scheel, from Alaska Pacific University.
“This suggests that when the right conditions occur, evolution may produce very similar outcomes in diverse groups of organisms.”
