So far on our trip we have visited three aquariums. The Long Bay Aquarium in Los Angeles, the Monteray Bay Aquarium in Monteray Bay on our road trip to San Francisco and the Aquarium at the California Science Centre in San Francisco. One of the creatures that I really love is the octopus. I've made a blog post below with lots of the fascinating facts I've learned.
Octopuses can mimic the colours of their surrounding.
Octopuses among the other cephalopods have been declared sentient by the government of the UK this means that they can experience happiness, pain and other emotions.
Octopuses live for around 3-5 years meaning that they have around 1/30 of a human life.
Octopuses have blue blood.
The Amazing Octopus
Main Facts
Octopuses can fit through a gap the size of a 20-cent coin.Octopuses can mimic the colours of their surrounding.
Octopuses among the other cephalopods have been declared sentient by the government of the UK this means that they can experience happiness, pain and other emotions.
Octopuses live for around 3-5 years meaning that they have around 1/30 of a human life.
Octopuses have blue blood.
The Predators Of The Octopus
Seals, sea otters, sharks and large fish are the predominant predators of the octopus.
What are humans doing to affect octopuses
Not only are humans polluting the water that octopuses live in they are also creating sound pollution which is loud noises that affect animals that rely on hearing such as the octopus. Fog horns, cars, boats engines and other loud man made sounds are affecting octopuses globally.
The cool abilities of the octopus in further depth
Camouflage
There are three techniques the octopus can use to camouflage.
1)The octopus can change their skin colour:
Just beneath their skin octopuses have thousands of cells called chromatophores. Each of these cells has a tiny sac filled with either a red, orange, brown, yellow or black pigment. By stretching or squeezing these sacs, they can rapidly change the brightness of each of these colours.
2) Octopuses can also change their texture:
Octopuses change their texture using small regions in their skin known as papillae. In these structures, muscle fibres run in a spiderweb pattern, with both radial spokes and concentric circles. When these fibres contract, they draw the soft tissue in the papillae towards the centre. This means they can make themselves looks smooth or bumpy to fit in with their environment.
Here is a video showing an octopus using those skills...
Octopuses can also change the way they move. For example if an octopus feels threatened and is trying to camouflage as a rock it will tuck up it's tentacles and sway in a way to make it look like it's moving in a current.
The mimic octopus takes this to a whole new level. They will change the way they move and act to look as though they are a whole different creature to scare off predators. They can mimic 15 different animals such as the poisonous flat fish, lion fish and deadly sea snake.
This video show the mimic octopus doing all of these things...
How do octopuses suck literally
Octopuses arms are like big tongues they feel around for a surface to attach to and then the flexible outer ring of the sucker attaches creating an air tight seal that allows the octopus to latch on to things kind of like a suction cup.
Looks like you are having a fabulous time - love to all.
ReplyDelete