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Amazing Octopus

Find out why octopuses are some of the smartest—and sneakiest—animals in the ocean

Image of an octopus hiding in a coconut underwater

Alex Mustard/NPL/Minden Pictures

THEY HIDE!
A veined octopus hide in a coconut shell.

Off the coast of Indonesia, a mimic octopus lurks in warm, shallow water. It’s hard to spot the brown creature as it haunts the murky and muddy seafloor, easily blending into the background to sneak up on its next meal.

But that’s far from the octopus’s only trick. It changes shape and color in a flash to scare off predators. It can morph into what appear to be the venomous spines of a lion fish, or turn black and white to resemble a dangerous sea snake. Predators like crabs scuttle away in fear. Scuba divers have reported sightings of mimic octopuses masquerading as jellyfish, shrimp, crabs, seahorses, and stingrays.

The mimic octopus is just one of 300 octopus species swimming in the world’s oceans. And it’s not the only species with clever ways to camouflage itself. Most octopuses can change color, while others find sneaky hideaways in the tiniest nooks—in a coral reef or even coconut shells. October 8 is World Octopus Day, in honor of these amazing animals. “People find connections with octopuses. They look into their big eyes and feel they have something in common,” says Christine Huffard, a biologist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California.

The Amazing Octopus
Watch an octopus change color and hunt for food.

COSTUME CHANGE

Octopuses have eight arms lined with suckers that can taste and feel their environment. To match their surroundings, most octopuses can change the color and texture of their skin. Their skin is packed with cells called chromatophores, which contain colorful pigments. “They’re like little water balloons with different color paint that can expand and contract,” says Huffard. “If you zoom in on octopus skin, you can see little dots of color.” This allows octopuses to quickly change their skin to resemble plants and other animals.


Image showing how an octopus can mimic the physical appearance of another species

Reinhard Dirscherl/Ullstein bild via Getty Images (Mimic) Tobias Bernhard Raff/Biosphoto/Minden Pictures (Lionfish)

THEY MIMIC!
A mimic octopus shape-shifts to imitate different creatures—like the lionfish below—and hide from predators.

Some octopuses also copy the movement of other organisms, making themselves almost impossible to detect. “When mimicking algae, an octopus species called Abdopus aculeatus moves its body to look like it’s drifting in a current, even if the water is completely still,” says Huffard. “The octopus can also make itself long and brown to look like a piece of dead sea grass.”

Octopuses are colorblind, making their talent for disguise even more astounding. They change color quickly because they do it without thinking. “It’s automatic,” says Huffard. “It’s not like the octopus needs to think, ‘Look like this rock!’”

Image of an octopus blending into its background

imagebroker.com GmbH & Co. KG/Alamy Stock Photo

THEY CHANGE COLOR!
A Cyane’s octopus can change color and texture in the blink of an eye.

SMART SUCKERS

Some octopuses are less than an inch long. Others are massive. The giant Pacific octopus can have an armspan of 30 feet and weigh a whopping 600 pounds. But no matter the size, all octopuses are very good at squeezing into tight spaces. That’s because they don’t have any bones. The only hard structure in their body is their beak, which they use to eat. Even large octopuses can fit through an opening the size of a quarter.

“In the wild, this allows them to get to food that other organisms can’t reach. It also allows them to hide from predators in super small spaces,” says Huffard. “In aquariums, it helps them make incredible escapes.”

One such escape took place at the National Aquarium of New Zealand in 2016. A soccer-ball-sized octopus named Inky busted out of his tank at night. His tracks suggest he crawled 8 feet across the floor and dropped down a 164-foot drain pipe, which released him into the ocean. He was never found.

Octopuses have been known to open jars and escape from tiny holes in boats, too. As for the octopuses that are still on view in the world’s aquariums, people are captivated by them. At the Seattle Aquarium in Washington State, biologist Joel Hollander gives octopuses enrichment toys, including a Mr. Potato Head toy stuffed with their favorite foods like crabs, clams, or fish. “Everyone watches while the octopus removes all of Mr. Potato Head’s limbs and devours the snack inside,” says Hollander. “That’s always a big hit.”

Bill O'Leary/The The Washington Post via Getty Images

THEY’RE SMART
Zookeepers need to get creative when entertaining octopuses by stuffing toys with food.

Plotting the Path
Play a fun math game about building line graphs.
All About Graphs
Watch an instructional video about graphs.

The charts below show different data sets about octopuses. Use the charts to answer the questions that follow. Record your work and answers on our answer sheet.

Chart showing the dates from October 2012 to October 2014 and the changing weights
Chart showing the type of cephalopod and the number of species in each category
Chart showing the different octopus species and the corresponding lengths (in inches)

Which data set is best displayed as a line graph? Why did you choose it?

A. Which is the only data set that can be displayed as a circle graph? Why?

B. Can that data set also be displayed as a bar graph or a line graph? Why or why not?

A. Which data set can be displayed only as a bar graph?

B. Which bar would be the smallest?

Some scientists have measured the sizes of different octopuses’ beaks. They want to compare the size of the beaks to the size of the animals’ bodies. Which type of graph would be best to display this data? Explain your answer.

A. If scientists were to announce the discovery of 200 new species of octopus, which chart would that affect?

B. How would that change a graph based on that chart?

videos (1)
Video
The Amazing Octopus

Statistics & Probability

Watch an octopus change color and hunt for food.

Text-to-Speech