The Octopus May Be Earth’s Closest Thing to an Alien — Here’s Why

The octopus is not extraterrestrial, despite occasional sensational claims about its origins. It evolved on Earth like every other known animal, yet its body and nervous system follow a design strikingly different from those of humans and other vertebrates.

Its intelligence developed independently within the mollusc family, while its flexible body, distributed neurons and rapidly transforming skin make it appear almost engineered for another world. The comparison works as a metaphor because octopuses solve familiar biological problems in remarkably unfamiliar ways.