Female Female octopuses throw rocks at males that bother them.

Question

Female octopuses throw rocks at males that bother them, documented in Octopus tetricus

Answer 1

1. Write a brief overall summary of your findings. I found online that it is true that female octopuses throw rocks at males that are harassing them.
2. What primary sources did you find (e.g., transcripts, videos of politician speeches, tweets from public figures, scientific studies)? For each source, write at least one or two sentences explaining what you learned. Include all links.  For my primary source, I found an article by PLOS One. It's a direct research article talking about how octopuses throw shells, and even algae, to hit other targeted octopuses.

 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0276482

3. What secondary sources did you find (e.g., newspapers, magazines)? Only use secondary sources if sufficient primary sources are not available. For each source, write at least one or two sentences explaining what you learned. Include all links. For my secondary source, I used an article by New Scientist talking about an analysis of footage taken of octopuses off the coast of Australia throwing shells and silt. They also talked about how, "in most cases, it is the females that do the throwing, often at males that are harassing them." They hold whatever they are throwing under their bodies in their tentacles and angle their siphons to shoot water, propelling the things at them.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2287879-female-octopuses-throw-things-at-males-that-are-harassing-them/

4. What potential biases or interests might each of your sources have? A lot of these articles are written very dramatically to seem more interesting. We also aren't animals, so we interpret behavior in a way that might not even be true, but supports our main claim.
5. What evidence supports the claim you are fact-checking? When I looked up the main claim, there were maybe 20 different articles that I could see backing up this claim, and videos showing how researchers have documented octopuses throwing things at others when being bothered by them. A lot of times it's during mating attempts, suggesting the female was not into it.
6. What evidence undermines the claim you are fact-checking? Researchers did not always know why they were throwing objects. Some could have been a cleaning behavior, not aggression. In these articles, researchers use very cautious language. They say things like, "may have been targeted," or "appeared targeted." This suggests uncertainty.

Answer 2

I found many sources with similar titles to this Bsky post from many popular science magazines (https://www.newscientist.com/article/2287879-female-octopuses-throw-things-at-males-that-are-harassing-them/). This is a true fact that octopuses throw things at each other as it was confirmed by a scientific journal published in 2022 by an accredited University of Ferrara Department of Life Sciences and Biotechnology in Italy (https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C38&q=In+the+line+of+fire%3A+Debris+throwing+by+wild+octopuses&btnG=). However, the video is AI over exaggeration of what octopus throws actually look like. I found from video sources listed in the scientific journal, that the throws look more like a strong push of air from the underside of the octopus followed by a cloud of dirt, instead of the full range of motion of a baseball throw. They also throw small shells and not rocks like the Bsky video showed. This leads to the conclusion that the unnatural behavior of the octopus is an AI over exaggeration of what an octopus throw actually looks like. The real of what is actually looks like (video file:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0276482.s002; diagram file:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0276482.s001). There is not many biases a journal would have as they used other journals to confirm all their information and were also peer reviewed by others not involved in the paper. The person/team that runs the Bsky account Digital Brain (@yourdigitalbrain.bsky.social) did not respond to questions about video.

Answer 3

The claim that female octopuses throw rocks at males that bother them comes from a social media post, not directly from a scientific source. The post doesn’t link to the actual study or explain where the information came from, so it’s important to check if it’s accurate. Since it’s just being shared by a general account, there’s no way to know if the person posting it understands the research or is just repeating something they saw online.

When looking at more reliable sources, there actually is real research behind this behavior, but it’s a little more specific than the post makes it sound. Scientists studying Octopus tetricus observed that these octopuses sometimes throw materials like shells, silt, and debris using jets of water. In some cases, females were more likely to throw things during interactions with males, especially around mating situations. However, they’re not literally throwing rocks, it's more like pushing debris through the water, and it doesn’t only happen when they’re annoyed. The behavior can also happen during things like cleaning their dens or interacting with other octopuses. 

Overall, the claim is partly true but oversimplified. Female octopuses have been observed throwing debris that sometimes hits males, but the social media post exaggerates it by making it sound more intentional and dramatic than it really is.

Answer 4

Think of this as your investigation log. Answer each question to explain what you discovered and how you got there.

Similar to what others have mentioned, this came from a social media post that was a random account. They didn’t give any information on their sources or follow up on the fact in the description. That being said when I further researched this claim in came to be that while the fact is partially true the terminology used is a common act of anthropomorphism. 

The Smithsonian Magazine is one of many to cover this behavior properly. The females will  use a siphon of water to hit males who are harassing them. Typically they hit them with shells they gathered with their tentacles. While they do indeed partake in this behavior it shouldn’t be considered throwing. When we read the word throwing we more than likely picture a baseball like throw. However this simply isn’t the case with octopi. 

Overall I think this primarily shows how people who seek to gain traction in the media will form headlines that exaggerate the truth. 

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/female-octopuses-throw-things-male-harassers-180978548/