[onetwo_threefour]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Well, I certainly have no sympathy for most insect species, even if they are vital to the cute and furries that eat them.

But the Colossal Squid has the largest eyes in the Animal Kingdom. I can imagine in Colossoal Squid with sparking cute/teary eyes making me like them.

Squid are remarkably intelligent as well. Squid and octopi are the most intelligent invertebrates, and if I remember correctly their brain sizes are comparable to those of a house cat. (Although comparable brain size is not necessarily a direct indicator of comparable intelligence)

Ahh.. here's the article I was remembering (seems consistent with what I remember from my old neuropsych texts)

http://discovermagazine.com/2003/oct/feateye

That Steve was named Steve was also revealing: Octopuses are the only animals, other than mammals like cuddly seals, that aquarium workers bother to name. So Anderson, Seattle's lead invertebrate biologist, began to wonder: If keepers recognize octopuses as individuals, how much difference is there among individual octopuses? Might these bizarre-looking mollusks have personalities? And if so, how else might their evolution have converged with ours across a billion-year chasm?
Meanwhile, in the waters off Bermuda, Canadian comparative psychologist Jennifer Mather was asking similar questions. Mather had observed an Octopus vulgaris, the common Atlantic octopus, catch several crabs and return to its rock den to eat them. Afterward it emerged, gathered four stones, propped these at the den entrance and, thus shielded, took a safe siesta. The strategy suggested qualities that weren't supposed to occur in the lower orders: foresight, planning, perhaps even tool use.