Researchers are claiming to have discovered the first documented case of an invertebrate using tools. But while tool use makes primates look more human and birds look intelligent, it succeeds only in making the veined octopus (Amphioctopus marginatu) look utterly ridiculous.

In the latest issue of Current Biology, researchers report observing octopuses/octopi carrying around halved coconut shells and later using them as shelters. While many species of octopus will shelter inside objects, these animals specifically carry them around for future use and manipulate them.

The researchers note that while ants have been seen to use leaves or pellets of sand to collect and transport food, these and other examples of potential invertebrate tool use have been seen only in response to specific stimuli. To be considered ‘tool use’, they say, the tool in question should not be in continuous use but should be of no benefit until used for its specific purpose.

This is what was observed off the coast of Northern Sulawesi and Bali in Indonesia.

“To carry one or more shells, this octopus manipulates and arranges the shells so that the concave surfaces are uppermost, then extends its arms around the outside and walks using the arms as rigid limbs,” write the researchers.

“We describe this lumbering octopedal gait as ‘stilt walking’. This unique and previously un-described form of locomotion is ungainly and clearly less efficient than unencumbered locomotion.”

The resulting movement is so bizarre one of the scientists who discovered it almost died laughing.

“I almost drowned laughing when I saw this the first time,” Julian Finn, from Australia’s Museum Victoria, told BBC News. “I could tell it was going to do something, but I didn’t expect this – I didn’t expect it would pick up the shell and run away with it.”

See the behaviour that almost doomed Finn at around the minute mark in the embedded video. It’s surely only a matter of time before someone sets this to the Benny Hill theme music.