Octopuses May Be So Terrifyingly Smart Because They Share Humans' Genes for Intelligence

Octopuses are brainy creatures with sophisticated smarts, and now scientists have uncovered a clue that may partly explain the cephalopods' remarkable intelligence: Its genes have a genetic quirk that is also seen in humans,)

The clues that scientists uncovered are called "jumping genes," or transposons, and they make up [45% of the human genome](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1832089/#:~:text=Transposable%20elements%20(TEs)%20are%20mobile,human%20genome%20(Lander%20et%20al.). Jumping genes are short sequences of [DNA](https://www.livescience.com/37247-dna.html) with the ability to copy and paste or cut and paste themselves to another location in the genome, and they've been linked to the evolution of genomes in multiple species. Genetic sequencing recently revealed that two species of octopus — *Octopus vulgaris* and *Octopus bimaculoides* — also have genomes that are filled with transposons, according to a study published May 18 in the journal [BMC Biology](https://bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12915-022-01303-5).)

In both humans and octopuses, most transposons are dormant, either shut down due to mutations or blocked from replicating by cellular defenses)

But one kind of transposon in humans, known as the Long Interspersed Nuclear Elements or LINE, may still be active. Evidence from prior studies suggests that LINE jumping genes are tightly regulated by the [brain](https://www.livescience.com/29365-human-brain.html), but are still [important for learning](https://go.redirectingat.com/?id=92X1590019&xcust=livescience_us_1700511685017463000&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticles%2Fnature10531&sref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.livescience.com%2Fjumping-genes-octopus-intelligence) and for memory formation in the hippocampus.)

Even though octopuses aren't closely related to animals with backbones, they nonetheless demonstrate behavioral and neural plasticity that's similar to that of vertebrates, Fiorito added. "These animals, like mammals, have the ability to adapt continuously and solve problems," and this evidence hints that the similarity may originate at the genetic level)