RE: Animal Intelligence and its Implications for Alien Life Part 1: Octopi
There was an Outer Limits episode, "Manifest Destiny," in which the extraterrestrial sentient communicated thoughts via electric current, made possible through high copper content of its blood and skin cells. It was almost like an electric eel, but a sentient electric eel on land. The concept was not explores much, other than a plot devise of "alien thoughts" living inside computer/electrical devises, but I thought it was an original conceptualization of a sentient alien.
With increased proficiency with CGI and augmented reality devises, it may be possible to move away from standard bipedal aliens to more variety in anatomic structure. The short life cycle of the Octopus prevents training and teaching of its young by the mothers, but if Octopus could live upto 100-years and could communicate parental experience and knowlege to its young, maybe man would have had to contend for dominance of the oceans against these monsters of the deep.
There are a couple of more social species of octopi we've found now where the mother survives having young multiple times- they'd make excellent candidates for selective breeding and Uplift. (Which, if you've never read David Brin's Uplift books, they're a lot of fun. They cover some really cool ideas.)
Oh no! Sentient octopi with longer lifespan. If man is not careful, these octopi may serve man for dinner! Maybe after man has precipitated his own demise with his rampant disregard for his environment, these octopi will be the dominant species on Earth.
Hah, one of the fiction stories I'm working on actually involves sentient octopi as the dominant species on Earth- man flees ecological catastrophe, octopi become the dominant sentient species, man returns to Earth and has to find a way to live alongside them.
You must send me a publish date and title.
Hah, will do- it's a ways down my list, though, have at least three projects before it.