Did you know that the male pillow octopus grows to only a few centimeters, while its female counterpart can stretch further than six feet? You go, girl!
But octopuses have more to offer than just an extreme body size. One intelligence trait of the octopus that has been circulating YouTube for a while is their ability to camouflage into almost any background. Their entire bodies are covered with tiny pigmented cells called chromatophores, each of which contain three sacks of colors and are surrounded by muscles that can control how the pigments are displayed by either relaxing or contracting. Think of it like a balloon; when it's loose, the color is small and concentrated, but when you stretch it out the color spreads and expands. A terrifying balloon of death.
Every one of these cells is controlled independently by the nervous system, allowing for an incredible amount of control and complexity for the range of colors. This also means that the octopus can change its appearance in less than a second. As if I wasn't already freaked out enough; not only can an octopus completely envelop me in its arms of death to slowly strangle me as I drown, but it can also sneak up on me, like a lioness waiting patiently for its prey to become complacent.
But enough about my completely rational fear of a slow, horrible death-by-camouflaged-tentacles. Remember the male pillow octopus we talked about earlier, the tiny one? Well, what he lacks in size he makes up for in creativity. These little buggers will rip off the poisonous tentacles of Portuguese man-of-war jellyfish -which they are immune to- and wield them as swords to keep predators at bay. As disturbing as that is -imagine ripping off the arm of one of your enemies and using it to fight off your other enemies- is it wrong that I find this defense mechanism kind of adorable? The things are only a couple centimeters long!
Really good voice here, and some awesome research. The bit about the pillow octopus using jellyfish tentacles of Men-of-War was especially awesome; more interesting by far than their ability to correctly predict Super-Bowl games.
ReplyDeleteThe man-o-war bit is making me rethink my stance on the octopus. I loved them before and now I think I can develop a bonafide obsession with the things. That's just so BA! They can do so much cool stuff! I had no idea about the camouflage techniques either.
ReplyDeleteAs usual, super strong voice. "Strangle me as I drown" I'm so glad I read that line just before deciding to go to bed. Nothing like staring at the ceiling all night, thinking about the tentacles of doom wrapping around my throat. Thanks, Bri. Thanks a lot. Can't wait to read your whole paper!