Paul the Octopus

Life

Paul was hatched from an egg at the Sea Life Centre in Weymouth, England, and was then moved to a tank at one of the chain's centres at Oberhausen in Germany. Paul's name derived from the title of a poem by the German children's writer Boy Lornsen: Der Tintenfisch Paul Oktopus.

According to Sea Life's entertainment director, Daniel Fey, Paul demonstrated intelligence early in life: "There was something about the way he looked at our visitors when they came close to the tank. It was so unusual, so we tried to find out what his special talents were."

The animal rights organisation PETA commented that octopuses are some of the most intelligent of invertebrates, with complex thought processes, long- and short-term memories, and different personalities. They can use tools, learn through observation, and are particularly sensitive to pain, according to the group. They said it would be cruel to keep Paul in permanent confinement. Sea Life Centres responded that it would be dangerous to release him, because he was born in captivity, and was not accustomed to finding food for himself.

Following Paul's rise to fame, businessmen in Carballiño, a community in Galicia, collected about €30,000 for a "transfer fee" to get Paul as main attraction of the local Fiesta del Pulpo festival. Manuel Pazo, a fisherman and head of the local business club assured people that Paul would be presented alive in a tank and not on the menu. Sealife rejected the offer nevertheless.

Divination

Paul's career as an oracle began during the UEFA Euro 2008 tournament. In the lead-up to Germany's international football matches, Paul was presented with two clear plastic boxes, each containing food: a mussel or an oyster. Each container was marked with the flag of a team, one the flag of Germany, and the other the flag of Germany's opponent. The box which Paul opened first (and ate its contents) was deemed to be the predicted winner of the match.

Professor Chris Budd, of the University of Bath, and Professor David Spiegelhalter, of Cambridge University, have both compared Paul's apparent success to a run of luck when tossing a coin. Under the hypothesis that Paul was equally likely to choose the winner or the loser of a match, and neglecting the possibility of a draw, it had a 1 in 2 chance of predicting a single result and a 1 in 64 chance of predicting six in a row. This feat would be unlikely to happen by chance alone, but not hugely so. Spiegelhalter points out that there are "other animals that have attempted but failed to predict the outcome of football matches"; it is not remarkable that one animal is more successful than the others, and only the successful animals will gain public attention after the fact. Specifically, it is not remarkable that out of a perhaps large number of animals attempting this feat, one will be successful. Other experts propose that chance alone is not the only possible explanation for Paul's choices. It could have been choosing boxes systematically—if not on the basis of football expertise, then perhaps on his evaluation of the countries' flags.

Of a total of fourteen predictions, Paul chose Germany eleven times, the only other choices selected were Spain (twice) and Serbia. The species Octopus vulgaris is almost certainly colour blind; neither behavioural studies nor electroretinogram experiments show any discrimination of a colour's hue. Nonetheless, individuals can distinguish brightness as well as an object's size, shape, and orientation. Shelagh Malham of Bangor University states that they are drawn to horizontal shapes, and indeed, there are horizontal stripes on the flags he has chosen. The flag of Germany, a bold tricolour consisting of three equal horizontal bands of black, red and gold, was Paul's usual favourite. But the flag of Spain, with its broad yellow stripe, and the flag of Serbia, with its contrast of blue and white, are more vivid still, possibly explaining why Paul picked those countries over Germany. Fey suggested that Paul was confused by the similarities between the German and Spanish flags; this was on 6 July, when Fey expressed hope that Paul's latest pick would be wrong.

Matthew Fuller, the senior aquarist at the Weymouth park where Paul was hatched, judged the flag-design theory to be plausible: "[Octopuses] are the most intelligent of all the invertebrates and studies have shown they are able to distinguish shapes and patterns so maybe he's able to recognise flags." Vyacheslav Bisikov, a Russian biologist, agrees that it is possible for an octopus to become attracted to a striped flag. Drosos Koutsoubos, a marine biologist at the University of the Aegean, was more cautious: "Well, I'm not a specialist in the behaviour of octopuses and I can't give you with certainty an answer to this particular question. At least to my knowledge, it's rather a matter of random selection rather than any other selection."

Octopus vulgaris is also equipped with sensitive chemoreceptors on its tentacles, which are used to taste food and "smell" the water. Biologist Volker Miske, of the University of Greifswald, has suggested that minor chemical differences on the surface of each box might have accounted for Paul's decisions. Bisikov stated that Paul could have been "easily trained" to choose the right box by smell. According to Paul's keepers, there were holes in the containers to help him choose.

Theories of Paul's behaviour could have been systematically tested if it were to have repeated its selection many times, but it only selected one box per game.

Results

In UEFA Euro 2008, Paul correctly predicted the outcome of 4 out of 6 of Germany's matches. It failed to predict their defeats by Croatia in the group stage, and by Spain in the championship's final.

2010 FIFA World Cup

Paul's accurate choices for the 2010 World Cup, broadcast live by German news channel n-tv, endowed him with celebrity status. Paul predicted the winners of each of the seven 2010 FIFA World Cup matches that the German team played, against Australia, Serbia, Ghana, England, Argentina, Spain, and Uruguay. His prediction that Argentina would lose prompted Argentine chef Nicolas Bedorrou to post an octopus recipe on Facebook.

There are always people who want to eat our octopus but he is not shy and we are here to protect him as well. He will survive.

Paul correctly predicted the outcome of the semi-final, by choosing the food in the box marked with the Spanish flag. German supporters drew hope from his incorrect choice for the Germany versus Spain match in the UEFA Euro 2008 but were disappointed. The prediction led to German fans calling for Paul to be eaten. In response, the then Spanish Prime Minister José Zapatero offered to send Paul official state protection, and the Industry Minister Miguel Sebastian called for Paul to be given safe haven in Spain.

Paul's notoriety attracted criticism from the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who accused him of being a symbol of Western decadence and decay.

Doubts were expressed as to whether it was actually the same octopus in 2010 as it had been in 2008.

Similar predictors

Some other German oracles did not fare so well in the World Cup. The animals at the Chemnitz Zoo were wrong on all of Germany's group-stage games, with Leon the porcupine picking Australia, Petty the pygmy hippopotamus spurning Serbia's apple-topped pile of hay, and Anton the tamarin eating a raisin representing Ghana.

Mani the parakeet of Singapore became famous for correctly predicting the results of all four quarter-final matches. Mani contradicted Paul by picking the Netherlands to win the final, resulting in some media outlets describing the game as an octopus-versus-parakeet showdown.

Death and legacy

Paul was last checked by staff on 25 October 2010, and was in good health, but the following morning he was found dead. He was aged two-and-a-half, a normal lifespan for the species. His agent, Chris Davies, said "It's a sad day. Paul was rather special but we managed to film Paul before he left this mortal earth". Sea Life Centre manager Stefan Porwoll remembered Paul as an octopus who had "enthused people across every continent".

In 2010 uTouchLabs developed an iPhone app called "Ask the Octopus".

On 17 June 2014, during the 2014 FIFA World Cup, Paul was featured in a Google "doodle". He was represented as in heaven, perched on a billowy bed of clouds and adorned with a halo; when animated, he appeared to vacillate in his predictions for the day's matches. Paul was again featured on 13 July in the doodle for the 2014 final. In that doodle, clicking on the clouds in the upper left brings up an image of Paul, similar to that in the earlier doodle, "cheering" on the final from heaven.