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 1. Stories
 2. Eight Strange and Wonderful Facts About Octopuses

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September 06, 2023


EIGHT STRANGE AND WONDERFUL FACTS ABOUT OCTOPUSES

Animals

Octopuses can rival the creatures of science fiction: big-eyed, multi-armed,
soft-bodied, shape-shifting and venomous, with incredible intelligence; alien,
yet homegrown during the Earth’s Late Jurassic period, about 140 million years
ago.

Today, about 300 species are distributed among temperate, subtropical and
tropical waters around the globe and occupy habitats from coral reefs down to
the ocean floor.

Join us to ponder eight stranger-than-fiction facts about octopuses.


RELATED CONTENT

 * Eight Aquatic Animals in the Benthic Zone
 * Giant Pacific Octopus
 * Oceans Gallery


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BLUE BLOODS

Octopuses have blue blood. Not from royal genes, but from copper. Unlike a lot
of other marine invertebrates, octopuses have a high metabolic rate, and
therefore a high demand for oxygen. Copper-based hemocyanin is more efficient
for transporting oxygen at low temperatures and low oxygen concentrations than
is the iron-based hemoglobin that makes our blood red.


THREE HEARTS

Octopuses also have three hearts: two just to pump blood through the gills and
one more to circulate it to the organs. The circulating heart stops beating
while an octopus swims, which explains why these cephalopods prefer crawling:
swimming exhausts them.


INK JET

Many octopuses are able to escape danger by releasing a squirt of obscuring ink
as they zoom away on a jet of water. Within their ink sacs they produce melanin,
the same dark pigment that’s in our hair and skin. The ink also contains
tyrosinase, a compound that burns predators’ eyes and temporarily paralyzes
their senses of smell and taste. Altogether, octopus ink is a triple whammy of
defense, but it is not poisonous.


VENOM

On the other hand, all octopuses (plus all cuttlefishes and some squids) are
venomous, although only the blue-ringed octopus of Australia is dangerous to
humans. Injected as an octopus drills into its prey with its beak, the venom
fatally paralyzes an animal that could otherwise injure the squishy invertebrate
in a struggle. It also begins the digestive process. Researchers have discovered
that octopus venom contains proteins similar to those produced by pufferfish and
porcupinefish as well as by some venomous snakes.




COLOR COORDINATION

Octopuses, along with squids and cuttlefishes, are masters of camouflage,
literally changing color, brightness, pattern and even texture in a flash to
hide in plain sight or advertise for a mate. This chromatic virtuosity puzzled
scientists because, comparing cephalopods’ eyes to ours, they should be color
blind. Unlike humans, who have three types of color receptors to see
combinations of red, blue and green, cephalopods have only one kind. Looking
more closely into octopuses’ dumbbell-shaped pupils, however, researchers
hypothesized that the pupils are like prisms that break white light into the
separate colors of the rainbow. By changing the shape of its eyeballs, an
octopus can bring different wavelengths, or colors, into focus.


MULTITASKING ARMS

Octopus’s eight arms can perform separate tasks simultaneously thanks to a large
nerve cluster, like a minibrain, at the base of each controlling its movement.
The curling and unfurling arms, dotted with more than 2,000 individually moving
suction cups, contain two-thirds of the animal’s neurons. The suckers are
equipped with chemical sensors that not only feel, but taste and smell as well.
So while an octopus concentrates on hunting, its arms are moving it forward,
testing the water and ocean floor, probing coral crevices and maybe even prying
open a clam already caught.


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SMARTS

Octopuses are standouts among cephalopods, and among all invertebrates, for
their large brains. They can navigate mazes, solve problems, remember, predict,
use tools and take apart just about anything from a crab to a lock — all but
that last one sophisticated hunting behaviors. Shedd’s aquarists provide our
resident giant Pacific octopus with stimulating activities (and enable it to
participate in its own wellness care) through regular training sessions that
apply the same positive-reinforcement techniques used with the marine mammals.
They also offer the octopus enrichment, including a variety of toys and favorite
treats, the latter sometimes given as “prey puzzles” in screw-top jars.


IT CAME FROM THE TIDE POOL

Octopuses can come ashore. During short nocturnal forays at low tides, a few
coast-dwelling species appear to hunt for easy pickings such as crabs
and shellfish. But with their high oxygen needs, and the extreme exertion of
moving their boneless bodies against gravity’s drag, they can only survive on
limited gas exchange through their moist skin for a few minutes before crawling
back into the sea.

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