The Amazing Cephalopod in the News

Wikipedia file photo

The amazing octopus was featured in a news story a few hours ago, so I thought to share it with you.

While in the Mediterranean area for 4.5 years, one of my favorite dishes was octopus salad, a favorite among the locals in Greece, Spain, and Turkey as well as other Mediterranean restaurants who serve it as their specialty for tourists.

The octopus is a remarkable creature, member of the invertebrate family of species, cephalopod mollusc, Octopoda; it is one of the most intelligent and adaptable creatures found in marine waters. It defends itself by expulsion of ink and using camouflage, as well as the ability to jet quickly into hiding places. Having a hard beak that can break hard shells of crabs, they are also venomous, but only one specie is known to be deadly to humans: the blue-ringed octopus. There are about 300 species, which is one-third of the total number of known cephalopod species.

The following video shows how quickly they can move on land, the scene was captured by Porsche Indrisie in Yallingup, Western Australia …

The octopus used its hard beak to bite into the crab and then used nerve venom to paralyze it, dissolving the crab's muscle with its saliva. Then it breaks open the shell and sucks out the liquified flesh.

The Octopus has a complex nervous system and two-thirds of octopus neurons are located in the nerve cords of its arms. Highly intelligent, they have shown learning capabilities and problem solving as the following video shows a laboratory octopus unscrewing a jar lid in order to escape the jar. …

According to Wikipedia entry:

The octopus has been shown to use tools. At least four specimens of the veined octopus (Amphioctopus marginatus) have been witnessed retrieving discarded coconut shells, manipulating them, and then reassembling them to use as shelter.[17][18][19]