{"data":{"id":1780,"lang":"en","title":"Octopuses Learn to Use Mirrors to Find Hidden Prey, a First for Any Invertebrate","summary":"A Dartmouth study in Current Biology shows octopuses can learn to use mirrors to locate hidden prey, the first such mirror-guided spatial reasoning seen in any invertebrate.","category":"science","category_label":"Science","published_at":"2026-06-06T02:00:59Z","updated_at":"2026-06-06T02:00:59Z","url":"https://techtools.cz/tools/news/article/1780-octopuses-learn-to-use-mirrors-to-find-hidden-prey-a-first-for-any-invertebrate","api_url":"https://techtools.cz/news-api/v1/articles/1780?lang=en","markdown_url":"https://techtools.cz/news-api/v1/articles/1780.md?lang=en","image_url":"https://home.dartmouth.edu/sites/home/files/styles/16_9_lg/public/2026-06/aaIMG_1687.jpg.webp?h=c6980913\u0026itok=dbU277iC","word_count":184,"reading_time_minutes":1,"sources":[{"url":"https://home.dartmouth.edu/news/2026/06/study-shows-octopuses-impressive-ability-navigate-space","domain":"home.dartmouth.edu"},{"url":"https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/06/260605023402.htm","domain":"sciencedaily.com"},{"url":"https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(26","domain":"cell.com"}],"translation":{"lang":"cs","id":1853,"title":"Chobotnice se naučily pomocí zrcadla najít skrytou kořist, poprvé u bezobratlého živočicha","url":"https://techtools.cz/tools/news/clanek/1853-chobotnice-se-naucily-pomoci-zrcadla-najit-skrytou-korist-poprve-u-bezobratleho","api_url":"https://techtools.cz/news-api/v1/articles/1853?lang=cs"},"content":"Octopuses can learn to read a mirror's reflection to locate food they cannot directly see, according to a Dartmouth study published in Current Biology. Researchers trained three California two-spot octopuses to ignore a crab image appearing in a mirror and instead move to where the hidden stimulus was actually positioned behind them. The animals reached the correct side roughly 73% of the time.\n\nLead author Mary Kieseler, who ran the work in Dartmouth's Octopus Lab and is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, said the results are the first to show an invertebrate using a mirror to understand its surroundings and find prey. Until now, that kind of mirror-guided spatial reasoning had been documented only in vertebrates such as some mammals and birds.\n\nThe team stresses the octopuses were using mirrors as a tool to locate occluded objects, not recognizing themselves. Still, linking a visible reflection to a hidden location is a sophisticated form of mediated perception that some scientists view as a building block toward self-recognition, adding to a growing body of evidence for the cephalopod's surprising intelligence."}}