Are Octopussies the Coolest Sea Critters? Video Goodness Included.
Camouflaged octopuses 'walk' on two tentacles
19:00 24 March 2005
NewScientist.com news service
Emma Young
If you are using your limbs to disguise yourself, how do you flee danger without giving yourself away? The answer, when you have eight arms, is to use six arms for disguise and to walk across on the seafloor on the other two.
That is the extraordinary behaviour observed for the first time in two species of octopus by Christine Huffard's team from the University of California, Berkeley, US.
Defying the notion that bipedal motion requires muscles attached to a rigid skeleton, the octopuses used the strong, flexible muscles in their back arms to walk across the seabed when pursued by camera-wielding biologists.
The two species have slightly different strategies. Octopus marginatus from Indonesia wraps itself into a ball while walking, perhaps to imitate a coconut rolling with the current.
Tiny Octopus aculeatus of Australia holds up six of its arms to disguise itself as a clump of seaweed, while walking at up to 14 centimetres per second - faster than it can manage using more than two arms.
"This camouflage is so good, it's easy to lose sight of the animal," Huffard says. Many other octopus species have back arms that might be strong enough to allow walking, she says.
"I have never ever heard of any behaviour remotely similar to this," says Steve O'Shea, a cephalopod expert at the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand. "This is yet another example of how little we know about these creatures."
Cephalopods were my interest of study when I had notions of pursuing Marine Ecology as an undergrad. degree.
This is incredible. Thanx for the post.
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Apr-06-2005 17:58
Shakka
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I saw this vid recently. You'd think they've been spying on the humans!
I recall from a biology class that octopusses could potentially be much more intelligent if their brain didn't have a giant hole in it. Something like that. Anyway, these guys look like they're training for the octo-olympics!
Apr-06-2005 19:20
biznology
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i think more incredible are the experiments showing their amazing skills as hunters - ie where they can squeeze thru dime sized holes longer than their bodies, open Ball glass jars to get to food...or where theyve traversed entire laboratories, out of water, from their tank to another tank of salt water with food innit|
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Apr-06-2005 22:39
trance85
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links don't work
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Apr-06-2005 22:59
trance85
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nevermind, watched it on msnbc
btw, do you octopuses and squids attack people, or have there been documentated cases of them doing so? ...just curious as I have a slight fear of sea creatures
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Apr-06-2005 23:19
biznology
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quote:
Originally posted by trance85
nevermind, watched it on msnbc
btw, do you octopuses and squids attack people, or have there been documentated cases of them doing so? ...just curious as I have a slight fear of sea creatures
theyre gonna scale the rocky mountains and attack you while youre sleeping in bed tonite! muwahahahah!
hehe|
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Apr-06-2005 23:31
Dmatrox
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in one zoo class, a ta told us of fish went missing from the tank overnight. they couldnt figure out how fish were missing so they set up a camera in the room overnight. apparently the octopus opened the lid to where it was stored, slid over across the floor and ate the fish then slid back into its container and put the lid back on. i dont know how far this is true though.
they are very cool animals tho.
Apr-07-2005 03:51
occrider
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quote:
Originally posted by trance85
btw, do you octopuses and squids attack people, or have there been documentated cases of them doing so? ...just curious as I have a slight fear of sea creatures
No ... well kinda. The only people to die from Octopus attacks are those who stupidly threaten some of the more poisonous species such as the Australian Blue Ring Octopus. As with most sea animals, they are typically provoked into attacking. As for squid attacks, there have been reports of carnivorous squids off the west coast, but they seem to only exhibit this hostile behaviour in a fisherman setting where chum drives them to a feeding frenzy.
there was a documentary on recently that talked about animals 200 million years in the future. it used computer generated graphics to portray what they think these critters will look like. and one of the major critters to roam the earth were Squids! The Squibbon used its 6 arms to swing through the rainforest canopy, looked really cool (i bet the creationists freaked)
Squibbon
Habitat: Northern Forest
Futuristic Factoid: Tree-swinging squid exhibit the highest form of intelligence since humans inhabited the Earth.
ps. you would think newscientist would spell the plural of octopus in the heading right
Last edited by tathi on Apr-07-2005 at 10:01
Apr-07-2005 09:53
trance85
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quote:
No ... well kinda. The only people to die from Octopus attacks are those who stupidly threaten some of the more poisonous species such as the Australian Blue Ring Octopus. As with most sea animals, they are typically provoked into attacking. As for squid attacks, there have been reports of carnivorous squids off the west coast, but they seem to only exhibit this hostile behaviour in a fisherman setting where chum drives them to a feeding frenzy.
