Octlantis: Scientists discover an underwater ‘octopus city’

In a peculiar discovery, researchers have uncovered an underwater ‘octopus city’ off the coast of Australia. Octlantis, as they call it has become a home for 15 octopuses.

The study that was published in the academic journal Marine and Freshwater Behavior and Physiology contradict earlier assumptions which see octopuses as hermits. The scientists said that the creatures “are perhaps not the isolated and solitary creatures we thought they were".

“These behaviors are the product of natural selection, and may be remarkably similar to vertebrate complex social behavior. This suggests that when the right conditions occur, evolution may produce very similar outcomes in diverse groups of organisms.”, Lead researcher David Scheel of Alaska Pacific University told Quartz.

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Earlier in 2009, a separate octopus site was found, and researchers named it Octopolis. Two to 15 octopuses can be seen at that site at any given time, according to the reports by Quartz.