Cuttlefish Have Passed the Marshmallow Test

Another reason not to keep basking in the unwavering and imagined radiance of Sapiens - here. 

Good things come to those who wait—especially for the cuttlefish hanging out with Alexandra Schnell, a comparative psychologist at the University of Cambridge in England. For the past decade, Schnell has been digging into cephalopod behavior and cognition by giving them tests traditionally used to measure brain power in primates and other vertebrates. And the squishy creatures are performing remarkably well.

In fact, a new study suggests that cuttlefish can display self-control. When given the choice, some individuals opt to forgo instant gratification if it means they can get a better reward down the line. In humans and other species, this ability, known as delay maintenance, is thought to have been an important step on the evolutionary road to complex decision-making.

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Donut-shaped brains aren’t the only things separating cuttlefish and large-brained vertebrates. One leading hypothesis for the driving force behind advanced cognition is that it helped animals navigate the challenges of a complex social life. But cuttlefish are not cooperatively social animals. They don’t practice parental care, and with a mere two-year life span, their generations don’t overlap. This means cuttlefish do not form strong affiliations with kin or partners. Some species even struggle to recognize members of the opposite sex. During mating, males will stick sperm packets on any individual they encounter.

“We don’t know if living in a social group is important for complex cognition unless we also show those abilities are lacking in less social species,” says Vonk. “There’s still so much room to understand more.”