(Octopoda sp.)
The thing to understand about octopodes, of kingdom Animalia, phylum Mollusca, class
cephalapoda, superorder octopodiformes, and order octopoda, is that they are deeply, startlingly
alien, with a complexly bewildering form of intelligence and bodies that can grow to hundreds of
pounds in weight yet still stretch themselves through an opening the size of an orange; an animal
whose eight arms are covered with thousands of suckers that taste as well as feel; a mollusk with
a beak like a parrot and venom like a snake and a tongue covered with teeth; a creature who can
shape-shift, change color, and squirt ink. But most intriguing of all, recent research indicates
that octopuses are remarkably intelligent. Scientists are becoming increasingly convinced that
these animals, which diverged from our lineage 500 to 700 million years ago, are quite acutely
intelligent and empathetic, to the point of forming personalities. If one was to meet an octopus,
face-to-beak, in an aquarium tank, it would extend its tentacles, gliding up like a melon with
eight tube socks hot glued on, to greet you. Its dominant eye would swivel toward you and it
would encircle your arms in its eight, each with more than two hundred suckers. Octopodes
can taste with the entirety of their skin, but their suckers are especially sensitive. They are also
prodigious and capable chameleons, changing their body’s texture and color to surprise prey or
evade predators. For its color palette, the octopus uses three layers of three different types of
cells near the skin’s surface. The deepest layer passively reflects background light. The topmost
may contain the colors yellow, red, brown, and black. The middle layer shows an array of
glittering blues, greens, and golds. Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory and University of
Washington researchers found that the skin of the Common Cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis), a color-changing
cousin of octopuses, contains gene sequences usually expressed only in the light-sensing retina
of the eye. In other words, cephalopods—octopuses, cuttlefish, and squid—may be able to see
with their skin.
octopus turns blood red, gets spiky and pimply, and erects two papillae over its eyes, earning
the sea shanty-esque name “Devil Fish”. Their sharp, birdlike beaks can tear and shred, their
tentacles can reach and rend, their suckers can tear and trap,and many have neurotoxic venom.
Should your octopus take a dislike to you and you manage to disengage before she employs
any of the above, she might still hold a grudge for the rest of her life, using the funnel she uses
to jet through the sea to soak you with water. And that “rest of her life” thing can be a tenuous
proposition if an octopus does not wish to be held in captivity. They may kill and eat each other,
or breed, which is bad because they die soon after mating, but not before going senile. Octopuses
in captivity actually escape their watery enclosures with alarming frequency. While on the move,
they have been discovered on carpets, along bookshelves, in a teapot, and inside the aquarium
tanks of other fish—upon whom they have usually been dining. Researchers are often put in the
position of having to chase escaping octopus like floppy, wet, gelatinous cats.
is cut off it will continue to crawl, snag food and pass it to where its beak was. Many of the
greatest leaps forward in knowledge of our future octopodic overlords have been made by
scientist Jennifer Matheson, in an in-depth Bermudan study of the Common Octopus (O. vulgaris) in
the mid-1980s. An octopus hunting expedition could take five minutes or three hours. The octopus
would capture something, inject it with venom, and carry it home to eat-- a den, which an octopus
may occupy only a few days before switching to a new one, is a place where the shell-less octopus can
safely hide: a hole in a rock, a discarded shell, or a cubbyhole in a sunken ship. One species, the East Pacific Red Octopus (O. rubescens), particularly likes to den in stubby, brown, glass beer bottles.
carefully placed it in front of its den. This action was repeated until three rocks had been selected
and carefully placed. It made some final adjustments, then slid into its home and went to sleep.
Mather concluded that the octopus must have some concept of what it needed to slumber safely,
and new how to get what it wanted, employing foresight, planning, and tools. As reported in
Matheson’s book, Octopus: The Ocean’s Intelligent Invertebrate, octopodes dismantle Lego sets
and open screw-top jars. Coauthor Roland Anderson reports that octopuses even learned to open
the childproof caps on Extra Strength Tylenol pill bottles—a feat that eludes many humans. In
another experiment, Anderson gave octopuses plastic pill bottles painted different shades and
with different textures to see which evoked more interest. Usually each octopus would grasp a
bottle to see if it were edible and then cast it off. But to his astonishment, Anderson saw one of
the octopuses doing something striking: she was blowing carefully modulated jets of water from
her funnel to send the bottle to the other end of her aquarium, where the water flow sent it back
to her. She repeated the action twenty times. This octopus wasn’t the only one to use the bottle as
a toy. Another octopus in the study also shot water at the bottle, sending it back and forth across
the water’s surface, rather than circling the tank. This fits all the criteria for play behavior—one
of the primary signs of intelligence, aside from deceit. Aquarists who care for octopuses feel
that not only can these animals play with toys, but they may need to play with toys. An Octopus
Enrichment Handbook has been developed by Cincinnati’s Newport Aquarium, with ideas of
how to keep these creatures entertained.
These brilliant animals tend to only live three to five years. Two branchial hearts pump blood
through each of the two gills, while the third is a systemic heart that pumps blood through the body.
Octopus blood contains the copper-rich protein hemocyanin for transporting oxygen. Although less
efficient under normal conditions than the iron-rich hemoglobin of vertebrates, in cold conditions with
low oxygen pressure, hemocyanin oxygen transportation is more efficient than hemoglobin oxygen
transportation. The hemocyanin is dissolved in the plasma instead of being carried within red blood
cells, and gives the blood a bluish color. The octopus draws water into its mantle cavity, where it passes
through its gills. As mollusks, their gills are finely divided and vascularized outgrowths of either the outer
or the inner body surface.